Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Autumn Wool
If you’re on my Facebook or Flickr, you’ve already seen this jacket – a hybrid of a bunch of sewing mistakes which started with choosing the most unflattering pattern ever for my figure (Sew Serendipity is an awesome book for learning to sew, but for some reason every jacket/tunic/dress in it has a high waistline which basically cuts my short body in half and makes me look a little rounder than I would like).
Body-image-pattern-issues aside. The green wool (vintage boucle) I got for $6 at an estate sale in August. The silk on the scarf was $5 at Dress-Sew. The brushed cotton plaid was leftover from a plaid-jumper that didn’t work and ended in the scrap pile. Plus two spools of thread = $15.
About half-way through the jacket, I realized how much it wasn’t going to work with front closures. The jacket fits and all, but somehow the fittedness plus the flare partway down only served to accentuate aspects of my body that I don’t like. But even so, I decided to keep on with it because it was really just an experiment in jacket-making and I wanted to see how it would turn out. I really love the fabric and I didn’t want to resign in failure – so I thought perhaps I would just close it at the top with a button or a large pin and be done with it.
But…. without any closures on the front, the jacket looked really plain. The night I finished hemming the sleeves, I wasn’t very happy with my sewing-self and so I decided to work on a scrap-scarf.When I have a sewing fail, I always return to something I know I can do so as just to get right back on the horse. The scarf was devised with ultimate-scrap appeal – the edges of the fabric are joined with a top-stitch, the wool bits were pasted down with a simple zig-zag after being cut fairly randomly to fit on the silk panels….. and I backed the whole thing in chocolate-brown piece of wool from the same estate sale as the boucle. I love these scrap scarves!
And then I had one of those magical, inspirational flashes…. what if I attached the scarf to the jacket and used the scarf instead of a button as a make-shift enclosure around the neck? This would give the neck more of a collar-like importance and add to the overall jacket appeal. I felt super-brilliant for a few minutes as I pinned it on and tried it. With an extra snap added at the top of the jacket for stability – it totally worked! I stitched it on and ended up with this autumn wool jacket/cape/scarf combination that still isn’t overly flattering but it doesn’t matter because wearing it open shows off your actual figure underneath. Brilliant yes? And now I get to move onto something else!
Red Cedar 
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