I Swear I Needed This: Butterick 6244

 

All right! So here we have item 2 of 3 from pre vacation sewing binge. Barcelona was meant to be high of like 55 or 60 degrees — read: 40 degrees most of the time. So all rational thought led me to “I probably need a light weight jacket for that weather.” I mean, you could argue that I already had a light weight jacket for that kind of weather, but you know: shiny, new, etc. 

This is the Butterick 6244, from their Lisette line. It wasn’t until I saw this version that I loved it. Plus then this one also.

The fabric I used is some dyeable shetland wool I originally bought with Vogue 9040 in mind (minus Peter Pan collar, duh. People who are as short as children shouldn’t dress like them).

I haven’t managed to execute that project, despite two or three rounds of muslining, because my coat-making time has been devoted to the two years-long slog of making this mens overcoat.

I know, especially with the blown out coloring that hides all the effing pad-stitching, that’s not a lot to show for two years. But man is it hard for me to get up for the hand-sewing every time.

Off topic. B6244 is easy and unlined and it took several hours, not many months, to do.

PATTERN MODIFICATIONS

First, let’s talk about the fabric, because it influenced some of the pattern modifications. It’s probably not well-suited for an unlined jacket. The fibers are a bit short and rough and pokey. I hope it softens up a bit over time (this is true of one of those massive pendleton blankets we have in our house), but meanwhile, I didn’t want to leave the sleeves unlined. True lining seemed difficult, though, so I decided just to underline, using some silk-cotton from my stash — the same used to line this jacket.

This was my first go a flat lock seams, which i thought might get complicated with the underlining/armscye-stitching/etc. I decided to finish the arms by serging the edges instead. The massive 5/8” seam allowances, though, generally require clipping for everything to lay flat, which isn’t possible with serging. SO! I reduced the seam allowances to 3/8” at both the sleeve cap and the armhole when tracing out my pattern, using this tool, which I’ve loved since buying a couple months back. I went ahead and did the same for the sleeve seam because i thought it would be more simple than flat locking as the pattern suggests. Because lazy.

I then hand basted the underlining to the sleeves before serging all edges of the sleeve and armscye (with my knife disengaged so as not to cut away too much). Then I sewed together using the 3/8″ seam allowance.

Finished, the inside looks like this

As for more straightforward pattern modifications:

:: I took one inch out of the front and back length at the LENGTHEN/SHORTEN HERE lines.

:: I scaled back the vertical hem line by two inches, basically just single-white-femaling Frivolous at Last. Because the vertical edge is what creates the waterfall, doing so scales back the length of the waterfall a bit so it doesn’t overwhelm the shorties.

:: Once I had it on, though, the length was still too long on me. I cut away another 2” from the bottom hem, then used a 7/8” rolled hem foot to finish, removing another 1 and 3/4” out of the length.

[question: Is this rolled hem foot legal for garment sewing? it totally worked and was much simpler than ‘turn, measure, press, measure, press, measure, REPEAT AGAIN, then sew down hem’. But it kind of felt like cheating?]

Those pattern modification details contain most of my construction details as well (aside from: I did use twill tape in both the shoulder seam and attaching the collar to the shoulders to prevent stretching out), so I’ll leave you with this: flat locking the corner where the collar attaches to the shoulder didn’t feel totally straightforward. There’s a sew-a-long on the Oliver & S blog, which is helpful. But I’d recommend looking at both the pattern instruction sheet images AND the Lisette sew-a-long instructions at each step. Better on the blog in some parts, the paper in others. Mine’s a bit mangled, especially at the shoulder/neck seam, take a look:

But not mangled enough to keep me from wearing it!