Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Oh no, I've caught Chanel!

There's a bad case of Chanel jacket going around on the blogs these days.

I thought I was immune, but then I started getting occasional flashes of inspiration. When I was really tired, I'd start seeing jackets in my head. Fringed trim and interesting buttons started to catch my eye.

I started wanting to wrap myself in tweed, in boucle, in boiled wool.

In . . . home dec fabric?

It's come to this. A muslin. A real, live muslin, which will end up wearable but which has already told me what to do with the real jacket.

I'm using KwikSew 3258, which looks like everybody's idea of a dowdy old Chanel suit on the envelope, kind a Chanel suit as reinterpreted by Dress Barn or maybe Fashion Bug. Like you can tell there's as good idea under there, you just have to figure out how. to. find. it.

Being that it's a KwikSew pattern, it's ridiculously well drafted, though I can say I like the drafting of their knit patterns better than their wovens. Still, this gave me enough information on the first run-through to know what changes need to be made, and there aren't many.

In their knit patterns, I tend to cut somewhere between a small and a medium. I traced a medium in this jacket, just to be safe, and that was the best choice. I'm pretty much a medium. The only changes I'm going to make for the final are to move the bust dart up by about 3/4 of an inch - it's a little . . . low slung. The girls don't need the help, thanks very much. I'm also shaving about a half inch off the center front (and the facing). The body of the jacket fits well, excepting the lowness of the dart, but the center fronts overlap just slightly. So off they come.

The jacket has a center back seam, for shaping, but honestly, there's not much shape to their shaped seam. I reshaped the seam for the next time around.

The fabric I used for the muslin was a double-sided home dec fabric that's been in stash for about 8 years. Maybe longer. It's always wanted to be a jacket, and I always liked the idea that I could use both sides.

I haven't necessarily decided to use the reverse for the pocket flaps here; I just pinned them on to get an idea of what the flaps would look like, and self flaps are almost invisible until the trim goes on.

The trim, by the way, is just the selvage of the fabric. If I decide to keep going with this, I'll put some black braid over the selvage part and just keep the neat little fringe.

For the inside, again if I keep going, I'm going to get a wad of black seam binding and just do a Hong Kong finish on all the seams. I'm not going to the bother of lining this, and if I do an HK finish, I'll still get to see both sides of my fabric.

So this is what a bad case of Chanel feels like, huh?

Does chicken soup cure this, or do I have to sew it out of my system?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no! Run for the hills. You should have been vaccinated. ;) I love the jacket. I can already see you wearing it. Cool!

Lisette M said...

I caught the Chanel bug a few years ago when it was going around. I made a jacket and got it out of my system, maybe...

Lisette M said...

Forgot to say the jacket looks great.

Gretchen the Household Deity said...

Looks like you've got a great start!

Elaray said...

I had a little case of Chanel about two years ago. Mine was a mutation of the bug, but I think I'm immune now. I loved the vest when it was just yardage, and I LOVE it even more as a vest! Great job!

Meg said...

Fun to watch where this is taking you. Love your description of Chanel/Kwik-Sew. Hah!

Little Hunting Creek said...

You have to sew it out of your system before it is Too Late :)
Your "muslin' looks promising so far

Birgitte said...

I caught the bug last year and it's sticking around. Your muslin looks great so far.
I'm so behind on updating my google reader list, but you're added now so I'll be happily following along :))