This pattern has 200 reviews

Simplicity 4076 needs no introduction. As stated in the title the pattern has 200 reviews on Pattern Review, so I certainly won’t add one. There is nothing more to be said. I’ve had the pattern in my pattern stash for a long time and have made it for the first time. I narrowed the sleeve hem, as the pattern has wide sleeves. A quick project that only took me a (short) evening.

The fabric is not bought by me. I got it this weekend in an ‘ugly fabric swap’. This is the third time a group of European ladies came together to sew. Most of us first met in Brussels a few years ago in a PR weekend, some of us prior to that in Paris and some came through the group a bit later, but it feels like we’ve all know each other for a long time now. It’s such fun!
When we meet we usually have this ugly fabric swap and sometimes it’s really ugly and you will not use the fabric for something other then muslin. This time I thought the fabric I ended up with was not too bad at all. I would probably not have chosen it myself but I like the result.
We also said we should make something from the fabric before our next meet-up, think I’m fast enough for that ;-).

I finished the purple jacket during the weekend. Not much else done because of a cold that held me down a bit. Photos of the jacket will have to wait till an opportunity to take photos in daylight.

A second time

I don’t often make patterns with special details twice for the obvious reason that when it’s that special, one item is enough in the closet. I’m making an exception for this jacket that I made this summer.

I like the style very much and have worn it regularly. Recently I bought a deep purple ponte with the intention to make a jacket, but I didn’t exactly know which pattern I wanted to use. I came around this pattern and thought that as I had invested so much time in making the pattern and liking the result so much, it was worth another one in a winter color. So that’s what I started with. I’ll share a few photos of the process.

The back has a ‘back stay’ from silk organza. As all seams are shaped it wasn’t easy to make a stay in one piece and instead of making a stay with seams I used the silk organza as extra layer in the back pieces. Perhaps not the right way to do it, hope it works.

All front pieces are interfaced. I don’t interface the seam allowances for two reasons: reducing bulk is the main reason, the other that it costs a lot of extra fabric to cut with seam allowances.

The front, the picture is made a bit lighter to show the details. It really is a very dark purple that looks almost black in the photos.

This was good progress the last two days. It will take a few more days with sewing time to complete and I’m hopeful that I’ll have enough time to complete it within a week.