Alex's Jacket

It's finished and in the mail to Korea, along with  5 pounds of lovely, parve or dairy free chocolate bars for my lactose intolerant daughter.  She is sensitive to even small amounts of dairy and since moving  down to Busan from Seoul she hasn't been able to find any.  My friend is frequently in Queens where Kosher food stores abound and she  found  lovely Swiss and Belgian chocolate bars.  It should last Alex quite a while.  It cost almost as much to ship it as the chocolate cost(a lot), so this will be her birthday present this year.  Along with the jacket.  I will not embarrass myself by admitting  how long it's been a UFO, but suffice it to say, I should have finished it long ago.  We picked out the fabric at Mood and it is a lovely wool and cashmere blend130 suiting from England.  The lining is a silk charmeuse. I have some pictures of it hanging because obviously this doesn't fit me and I'll have Alex take some pictures wearing it when she gets it.

The pattern is Burda 117 4/07.  Burda describes it as short and fitted with witty pockets.  It's also a 'perky petite' and at 5'3" Alex is petite,  but I still had to shorten the sleeves and narrow the shoulders.  I don't think of Alex as having narrow shoulders, but these were too wide.  I cut a size 17 and made an fba, and removed the extra  from the waist and hips.
I made a number of style changes  for her jacket.  The original strange hanging pockets.   I evened out the cf and side front and made a basic princess seamed jacket to which I added pockets. I also added vents to the sleeves.
She wanted a short,  classic fitted jacket, which  is what she got.

You want to know if about the instructions?  Laughable, worse than usual for Burda.  I don't really need much in the way of  instructions when making a jacket but I did use the Threads article I mentioned in an earlier post for the lapels and the Judy Burlap article for the sleeve vents.  If I need instructions I love the Taunton Easy Sewing series, I have all of them and I highly recommend them.  I've used the Easy Guide to Sewing Jackets, by Cecelia Poldolak  a lot over the years just using the Threads article for sewing collars and lapels.  It's not a book for hand tailoring, but if you want to speed tailor,  it's great.  Since Burda almost never gives a lining pattern, it's also great for drafting one. I don't usually use a lining pattern anyway, since I make a lot of alterations and it's just easier to adapt the altered pattern pieces than starting from scratch on a lining pattern. 

 

The back could use a bit more pressing, but she'll need to get it pressed when it gets to Korea anyway.
I didn't bag the lining, ie sew in completely by machine.  I completely machine stitch the lining and sew it to the jacket facings, but after I've applied them to the jacket.  I think that this gives me more control especially for the collar and lapels.   The lining is then hand stitched to the  jacket hems.  I think that while this is more time consuming, I get more control here too.