Print Suit Part 2 - Jacket (M5938)

Okay, it's finally time for part 2 of my Print Suit posts (in case you missed it, you can read Part 1 (Trousers) here). This time, as you may have guessed from the title, we're on the jacket.

For this, I used the McCall's 5938 blazer pattern.

I bought this about a decade ago, in fact, I think this was one of my first patterns, well before I was ready for any kind of tailoring. I had attempted a mock up back then, so I thought I share it with you so we can admire how much/little progress I've made! (photos also taken at the time).

Clearly back then, I had serious issues in understanding the front dart/pocket situation, but I'm actually really liking the black and white design!

Anyway, skip forward 10 years, and I decided I'd better make another toile. Here it is in all its lab coat-esque glory on top of the draping for my lace top from a few posts ago:

I'm reasonably satisfied that this is at least an improvement on my first version! The toile fit pretty well, so I didn't need to make any adjustments in terms of sizing. The only alteration I made was to shorten it by about 7", as I felt it would be a little long for a suit jacket.

Right then, as you'll have got from my previous Print Suit post, or if you've already seen the final photos on my Instagram, I was using pretty vibrant fabric for the jacket:

I interlined the body of the jacket with some canvas, to give the relatively thin cotton satin some rigidity.

Then I just got on with sewing it up. This was actually the first proper jacket I'd made (I blogged about the Velvet Suit Jacket first, but actually made it second), so I did struggle a little bit with the pockets, but I got there eventually. Here's how the body looked before it all went together:

As you can see from the pockets, I used a gold-ish satin for the lining (may have forgotten to take a picture of it...)

The rest of the jacket went together as you'd expect it to, and I had no real issues in following the pattern. Once the jacket was all done except for the hems and buttons, I left it for several months before finishing it off (part of the reason why the other suit got blogged about first...). I just really hate hemming. Here's it in that state:

Then I finally went through and hemmed it all, which all had to be handstitched.

Then I covered some buttons and attached them.

And hey presto, I had a finished jacket! Here's some closeups of all the details:

 This is getting a bit picture heavy so I'll put the photoshoot pictures in another post - stay tuned for that!