Minoru

I made another jacket, hähähähä! In my mind sewing jackets is even more fun than sewing button ups or jeans. The only problem is that they take a lot of space in closets and that you really cannot justify having more than let’s say 6 jackets per season ;) Another problem with me and my jackets is that I my bike every morning an afternoon and that I need jackets that are warm, water and draftproof.Right now I just don’t have the motivation, time and skills to sew a ski jacket and so I’m always wearing my rtw jacket when it gets really cold. That’s okay for me and until I am ready to try to sew a ski jacket I’ll just sew some more “normal” ones :)

Also I hade some wool fabric in my stash from when I ordered a whole winter fabric bundle in spring. All spring and summer I thought about what to make with this fabric and I finally settled on the Sewaholic Minoru Jacket, even though my thick and heavy fabric really wasn’t suited for this pattern. But you know, I love myself a good challenge ;) And I tell you, this project wasn’t short in challenges. When I measured the fabric I found that I had less than 1,50m of it, and I would have needed 2,3 m according to the instructions.

Nevertheless I decided to lengthen the pattern pieces, because you know, I’m large.

When I placed the pattern pieces on my small piece of fabric I realized, that I had to shorten the pattern pieces at the hems. I shortened the bodice pieces as much as I had to, so that they fit on my fabric. I shortened the sleeves as much as possible. Even though I couldn’t cut the collar and facings from the wool fabric. Especially because I wanted welt pockets. So I decided to cut collar and facings from lining and I omitted the hidden hood.

I sewed the pockets according to this Tutorial. I still don’t manage to sew clean locking welt pockets I am happy that the worst parts are hidden by the pocket flaps ;) I didn’t sew the interior pockets, taht are suggested by the pattern because I found that I don’t use them.

The lining is a flannel leftover from a dress I made once. I cut collar and facings cross grain.

Luckily I didn’t have enough fabrics to line the sleeves with and so I remembered that flannel isn’t slippery enough for jacket sleeves and so I used some very slippery lining fabric. That works wonders I tell you! I don’t have any problems getting into this jacket.

To make this jacket water and more important wind proof I interlined it with climate membrane that I bought here. I only once got into rain, and it was very slight so I cannot really tell if the jacket really is waterproof, however I can tell you that it is draftproof! :)

Lazy as I am I only pinned the interlining to the wool, that worked out okay, but not super well.

All in all the jacket turned out okay, but because of some issue I had not everything is as neat as I wanted it to be. But don’t get me wrong, I’m totally okay with that. My major problem was that the fabric was too thick for the pattern. I couldn’t gather it, so I made small pleats. Also topstitching was really hard! And don’t even mention cutting it! I literally had blisters on my fingers!

Because I thought that a plain black jacket is too bring and because I always wanted to try it I embroidered a feather on the jacket. I used black embroidery yarn what makes the feather almost invisible but I wanted something subtle and I wasn’t sure about how my firs embroidery would turn out.

I sewed size 6, which is my Sewaholic size. I really liked the instructions, but I also think that they are not suited for total beginners as there are no details on how to insert the zipper, but that is totally fine. After finishing the coat I found that there is also a  Sew Along for the Minoru, but I cannot say anything about it, as I didn’t use it.

Even though I had some troubles with this jacket I really really like it now, The greater the challenge the better the garment, right?! ;) I even like the shorter length as the jackets looks great with flared skirts too!

The pictures were made during a trip Marvin I made to the Balck Forest. In the backdrop you se the Triberg Waterfalls.

Thanks for reading and tschüss!

 

Katharina