Remember this jacket from a couple of weeks ago?
And how I said I wasn't going to make another until I had an idea about sizing?
Well, that didn't last long.
But there's a reason. You know I've been mulling over a footmuff for the carseat, and part of that included wondering what size to make it, and how I could use the pattern from this jacket to work out shoulder width and hood size. So I made the next size up with a little modification. You could call it a muslin (of sorts).
It's the same Cute as a Button Jacket from Jackie Clark Designs as before but this time it's the 18 months to 2 years size, which in reality turns out to only be an inch wider round the chest than the smaller size. I added an inch to each front edge to give an overlap, and increased the circumference of the sleeves by half an inch.
Sorry to be predictable, but the fabric is from Ikea. The outer is the remains of the Minna which I used to make a pair of trousers last year, and the inner quilted lining is an off-cut of a thin bed cover which I bought a few years ago to make a summer duvet.
I bias bound the edges with some even older Ikea furnishing cotton that I can't even remember the name of. I thought binding would be a better idea than seams because of the resulting thickness caused by the padding. In the event, I should have cut the binding wider because it was a bit of a fiddle to sew on - the fact that it was furnishing weight and quite coarsely woven didn't help either.
I ended up machine stitching the binding on, trimming back the padding, folding the binding over and stitching it by hand, and then zigzagging the whole caboodle. A bit of a much of a muchness but it seemed the only way to ensure it would stay on. It doesn't look fantastic but it's not so crappy as to be an embarrassment!
I thought toggles would be nicer than buttons, and I can move them out a bit as the baby gets bigger.
I didn't want to go for a duffle coat loopy-type fastening so that meant button (or toggle?) holes. You know I struggle with these, but I decided to try again anyway.
I tacked out the size I wanted them in a contrasting thread and tried 'manual' buttonholes with the Elna. They looked awful! So I picked them out and tried with a narrower zigzag. They looked terrible too. So I threw caution to the wind and got out the Lidl machine.
It coped fine with the thickness of the fabrics but I just couldn't adjust it to get a decent stitch length, so one side had really widely spaced zigzag and the other was too close together even on the widest setting (actually changing the setting seemed to make no difference at all). In the end the machine decided that it couldn't even move the fabric on the second long side so I would just end up with an enormous lump of thread.
So having unpicked three lots of button holes I decided to take the pragmatic approach. I would either take the jacket to my LFS and get them to do the holes, or by the time the baby is big enough to wear it, I will have got a spanking new machine from a proper sewing machine manufacturer (I have my eye on a Janone...) and can do them myself with something reliable.
So that's the second jacket.
Ah, but don't go. You haven't seen the cute bit yet...
The back. If you can't dress a child in cute clothes when it's a toddler, when can you?
So here's a denim whale. Rejoice! for the fabric is NOT from Ikea! :¬)
I used Bondaweb to stick the denim onto the jacket then zigzaged round the edge. The eye is satin stitch and the squirt of water is just running stitch but I used some random dyed embroidery thread, so the water changes from white to blue as it squirts out (you can't really see that too well in the photo though).
My G said 'I like the jacket but er... I'm not sure about the whale'. Typical contraryness! I just hope his son has a better opinion!
