Faux Chanel Jacket

Hello!
We had a crazy week this week, there was a terrible storm (which most of you would probably laugh at) and it even snowed in some parts of Israel! Since we're not accustomed to actual real winter here it pretty much meant that the country fell apart. It took people hours to get to work in the morning because the roads were blocked and so on. No matter, at least we had rain!

I made this jacket a few weeks ago as a homage to the Chanel Jacket. Now I know it's much more basic than the Chanel Jacket but I was inspired by it and therefore I'm entitled to say that it is a homage. STOP CRITISIZING ME.

DO I LOOK LIKE MICHELLE OBAMA OR WHAT?

hmm.

I really do feel elegant and respectable when I wear this. It's a little more fancy than what I normally wear, I kind of dress like I a little girl most of the time (evidence here). This tendency is not as prominent in the blog because I tend to dress up for pictures rather than just wear the garments as I would to work on a daily basis (AND I own an obscene amount of sweaters with little animals them). WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY is that this isn't my usual style.

This is what I would have looked like had I taked the photos this past week:

This is what I think that bloggers that take near naked (and when I say near naked I mean short sleeves/skirts with no tights) photos in the snow. I know there's a secret conspiracy where they all use photoshop to insert snow, because there's no freaking way to be naked in the snow. I love my blog, but not that much. (for those of you who Googled the phrase "naked in the snow" and came across my blog 1) I'm sorry to disappoint 2) what were you thinking? seriously.)

Now I'll talk about the jacket, because this is why I have a blog. I still can't believe it, but I drafted the pattern myself! I used my own bodice pattern and it took quite some time because I wanted to make sure I did it right. (since then I've drafted another jacket and it went much quicker, I think I was just being a little too anal). To be honest, I should get off my high horse and face the facts, it's not really a difficult jacket to draft as there is not collar and it's only waist length but here at DS we kid ourselves that what we do is an achievement. Play along or leave.

This fabric was a NIGHTMARE, I don't think you can tell from the pictures, but it's so loosly woven I really think that the employee at the store I bought it from sat a wove the fabric from black and white string. It was silly of my not to take this into account, the only think I did to manage the stretchiness and shapless-ness of the fabric was stay stitch EVERYTHING. The problem was that I didn't think that even after the garment was finished there was the danger of it falling apart. How did that happend do you ask? the side of the jacket got cought on my bag and it pulled out like THREE STRINGS from the jacket. You'd think it's not a big deal but as I said, it's so loosely woven theres a gaping hole in the side of my jacket and I've yet to come up with an idea to fix this. Any ideas?

I interfaced the facings and the hemline because it wouldn't retain it's shape. It's still a little weird at times.. OH WELL.
The pattern has a basic side-bust dart and shoulder darts in the back. I wanted to keep it simple as the fabric is kind of busy. This is why the jacket came out kind of wide at the waist,  a little wide.

This was my first time making sleeve heads as well and I'm so happy with the result, it really does make a difference with the way the sleeves look. In my stupidity I bought bright purple fleece for this because I thought it will always be under fabric so it won't matter. I know I haven't mentioned this yet (hehe) but the fabric was REALLY loosely woven so you can kind of see little specs of purple fleece through the sleeve head. I use Gertie's method for this and it was really easy, it eliminates the need for easing the sleeve and inserts a sleeve head in one go!

 

No, I am not selling watches (boy am I full of jokes today), how awesome is my lining?! I tried wearing the jacket inside out and I looked like a pimp. I've started using poly sating for lining because there's a larger range in colors than lining fabrics, also they're thicker and feel a little more luxurious to me (I know I should be crucified for calling polyester luxurious). Have you ever tried it using poly satin as a lining?

 

AND THERES A WELT POCKET. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!@
I wish I had a handkerchief to put in this pocket because it is too cool not to be used. I used the Coletterie's Tutorial for this as well. It didn't come out as nice as my 60's Dress because the satin was kind of slippery and difficult to handle (and I may have over pressed it) but I'm still happy with it!

Inside-out picture. I know you love them.
I inserted the lining using the bagging method. It took me a while to figure out because I didn't think to look at the tutorial before I drafted the lining and cut out the pieces but I worked it out in the end. I used this excellent tutorial by Grainline.

See the gaping in the back? Maybe a back stay would have helped? Or maybe it the jacket just needs to be slimmer - any suggestions?

 

 

That's it for now!
Have you ever attempted to make a faux Chanel Jacket? I'd love to hear what you have to say about EVERYTHING I wrote today.
PICTURE OVERLOAD.