The Late Night Sewist

Hi!

I notice that it is exactly a month ago I kind of promised to post something I made for myself 😀 Well I haven´t been lazy especially considering my condition, but taking the photos is the problem, somehow it is never the right moment! I found a second for this today and here you go:

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But let´s talk about my recent love affair with Style Arc patterns! Despite of being bad at blogging about my projects, I have sewn up a few of them already (you can see one project in the background of the left photo as well) and there are others in the works. I don´t know really what it is about their patterns, but I guess it must be the simple lines and wearable designs that attract me, plus there have been zero issues with printing and taping the patterns together (at least from the company´s side, that is, haha). And as their motto goes, these are sewing patterns that fit! ……. Which makes it extra ridiculous that I managed to make what is probably the worst mistake during my sewing years!

I chose this easy jacket pattern to keep up with my promise to myself that I should up my game in jackets and to create something easy to wear for this summer, the first part of which I will be very much out of my normal shape with my hip circumference being exceeded by my waist! I liked the lines of the Dorothy jacket and while no jacket would close around my belly, this one with its angled fronts seemed to do better than the more traditional options while worn open.

I used a slightly stretchy fabric I ordered about 2 years ago from Italy on the bolt, I think I got 6 meters of it since I was contemplating starting my own webshop for fabrics. I have since dropped the idea, but honestly, the few fabrics I got then, have been such a pleasure to sew, albeit together with the shipping, far from economical.

The fabric has two good sides, both nicely textured, and it took me a while to decide which side to use. Since I have lots of it left, I will definitely use the darker side as well and who knows, maybe even for the same pattern because as I have mentioned already, I managed to make an unbelievable mistake with this one. I am aware that most of the people will not notice anything too strange about this jacket, but it hit me when I uploaded the first photo to my Instagram account. I had set in the sleeves the wrong way!

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I struggled with them while sewing the jacket up and was surprised as I am used to Style Arc patterns coming together easily and also the notches didn´t seem to match… which should have rang a bell, but with my pregnant brain, I just continued and struggled to make it fit (as much it is possible considering the belly) and then completed it just to realize the fact! 😀 Honestly, I could rip it up and make amends, but since the fabric helps to hide the problem I will leave it as it is. In addition, can we actually talk about “fit” at all, given my current shape? However, I love the pattern and this will not be the last Dorothy jacket you see.

We will see when I will finally follow instructions and make an unlined jacket when it is said so, because so far even if I have tried to refrain from the lining, eventually I have still added one. I like how it makes the whole garment look much more professional and I love using either a matching or even better, a contrasting piping between the main fabric and the lining. This one is no exception:

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You may wonder why the lining of the sleeves is black while the rest of it is navy – the answer is that I made it during the strictest quarantine and I was not able to get more of the navy stretch lining so I just had to accept the fact that if I wanted to finish it, I needed to use what I had.

I am interested to see how this will fit once I regain my normal shape. Probably we will see that sometime in July 🙂

Happy sewing!