A Wonderful Jacket Class with Priscilla Kibbee!

Well, I am not sure whether I will have the courage to wear this jacket in public but it sure has been fun to put it together and get all the hints I need!



We had a relatively small class with only five us attending and even with that I think we kept Priscilla jumping around quite a bit for those three days. We are meeting again on Tuesday to try to finish up the jackets. I did manage to get most of the front and back done and know what I am doing on the sleeves. There were very different jackets in the room. Only two people were using the same pattern so Priscilla got to deal with four different patterns and a myriad of body shapes. She is sooooo good at fitting even some of us who may be a bit rounder than we were 20 years ago! These are the photos of my jacket that shows the progress. I will put the pictures of the other jackets in tomorrow's blog!
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This is the beginnings of the back of the jacket. I had bought a couple of panels with me that I intended for the center back and ended up choosing this lovely Michael Miller tulip print instead. I had just bought it last Saturday with the intention of including it somewhere on this jacket. My original thought had been to do a black and red jacket and add in some black and white prints. After I bought the tulips, I slipped in some green fabrics and the evolution began!


This is the jacket a little further along. My goal was to get the back done Day 1, the front on Day 2 and then the sleeves. This didn't happen! The design part is really very difficult although after making the last jacket, I now am a little smarter about where to spend time vs where not to spend time.


I did manage to finish the back of the jacket on Day 1 and this is it!



This is the beginnings of the jacket on Day 2. I decided (of course with much help from Priscilla) to have slanting on one side and straight up and down on the other with the tulips again featured. I had made the Seminole piece that I used in the center in another class with Priscilla on embellishment with the intent of making this jacket.


You can see I have gotten further along in this picture with the fronts beginning to shape up. There is a little challenge with piecing the slanting side. The way these jackets are constructed is to directly piece onto a flannel foundation. So it is basically sew and flip and then iron down and then put on another piece. With the slanting side, I sewed down the Seminole work but left the black piece open on one wide. I will hand stitch it down on top of the slanting pieces which are all sewn and flipped.



This is the jacket a little further along.





This was how I left the fronts at the end of Day 2.


This is the front near the end of the third day.



This shows to the left the beginnings of the sleeve which will be pretty simple with just some stripes in the center and then the "background" fabric on the lower part (under the arm).





This is the completed front and back. I have a beaded piece that you can see in the previous picture that I left out of this picture. I will be sewing the beaded piece on the jacket front to the right (with the slant)where the black stripe is. I am also changing the bottom of that piece so that there is not solid black but some stripes. Onward to getting the sleeves done and the lining!