"At least you can blog it" said Tim when I spent 15 minutes detailing all the problems and failures I had making this little jacket for Phoebe. It was supposed to have a zipper and elastic cuffs and be finished so nicely you couldn't tell it was handmade. Instead it's a little uneven, a little shabby, and best seen from a distance. But it's grown on me. Considering I made it without a real pattern and that it's lined with a stretchy jersey knit, oh and that's it's PLAID -- what was I thinking?! -- it came out pretty cute. I tried to adapt a japanese pattern for an unlined, button-down tunic with gathers to make this jacket. Evidently I copied the wrong size and maybe the wrong pieces, so it came out too small to fit around Phoebe. I added a 3" strip along the front edges and now we're in business. I didn't want to deal with buttons and the zipper was out b/c the sides needed to overlap, not meet up, so I sewed on some velcro. And by some I mean a huge long strip along the whole front. ha! I was at the end of my rope, and quite out of my mind, last weekend when I did that. That may be the biggest mistake, although when she's in it, she's in. But if she needs to take it off...rrrriiiiiipppppp. It's quite an event. I'm thinking maybe she wears it for our pumpkin patch outing. I always take 1,000 pictures of that every year. Then it'll be properly documented and I can put it out of its misery in the back of the closet. And chalk it up to lessons learned. First lesson, maybe try sewing with some non-stretchy fabrics. Two, and maybe something solid that doesn't need to be matched up. Third, look for sewing patterns in English!
