Make nine progress - Corduruoy Moto jacket - a Butterick b6169 review

I love a biker jacket,  I've always had one or more in my wardrobe.   Most recently, I bought a black and white tweedy/marly moto coat from Sainsburys in the sale for about £12 and I wore it to death, pretty much literally.  It's all coming apart but it hangs on my coat hooks by the front of my house because I love it, but I haven;t worn it in quite some time. 

So it was probably an inevitability that I would end up trying to make my own.  I thought I was ambitious putting the B6169 pattern on my makenine as I pulled my plans together.  I would be lying if I said this was the first jacket I have made - but I am claiming that the bomber jacket I made in my GCSE textiles  (13 years ago...) with a lot of help from my textiles teacher really counts.  I got spurred on seeing the blogs over on SewManju of her two versions and bought teh pattern thinking I'd tackle it a bit further into the year   But its not even halfway through February and I have made it up and am pretty happy with the results!

I used a polka dot needlecord that I picked up from Textile Express in their sale for £4 or £5pm and I pettern tetris-ed hard to get the jacket out of this 2m piece. (the pattern says you need 2.5m) but I squeezed it out and thankfully didn't make any errors (I can't say ths for all my recent makes... more to follow in a later blog).

I had originally planned to make this jacket more as a (hopefully) wearable toile and it is in part down to that reason I omitted the welt pockets.  (Note: Other reasons include, I have never done them before and they scared me and enough of this project scared me that I didnt need any more aaand I had read that they were small and weirdly placed in other blogs and I didn't want to fiddle around with it on my first go aaaand the RTW one I have the pockets never get used becasue they are too small and weirdly placed so I dind't feel too bothered aaaand all my dresses have pockets in now right, so a un-pocketed jacket isn't the end of the world).  I really wasn't sure on sizing because the body measurements put me at a Size 22 but the finished garment measurements put me at a 16 - which is odd as the garment doesnt look hugely loose fitting on the model.  I went for a Size 16, panicked about it several times but honestly it fits fine - if anything its a little bit big at the sides.  This hasn't really helped me pick sizes for other projects but hey, my judgement worked out this time round!

After some bold evening of sewing planning and prepping, the pieces sat in my sewing room for a week or so, as the initial boldness of tracing the pattern and cutting the fabric soon disappeared and my 'beginner sewer' mindset kicked in.  MY anxiety has been incredibly high recently and it hasn't taken much to put me off a project so I am delighted I managed to convince myself to pick this back up sooner rather than later because actually, it didn't take me too long.and wasn't as hard as I thought. 

The construction is fairly simple and I think the instructions are pretty good.  There is a printing error in the zip insertion though, which bearing in mind its early on in construction nearly put me off entirely.  I sewed and unpicked and resewed the zip four times before finding the Lisette blog.  It took me about 5 hours to sew up the outer casing of the jacket - but only an hour to sew the lining layer.  The lining is from a childrens duvet cover that I bought on ebay.  This star print is the reverse of the duvet cover - the front has gorgeous big rockets and planets on it and I have something special planned for it!.  It was originally purchased to make a dress from but it was a bit too.. light and... plasticy? for that - Kid's duvets have a weird plastic feel.  But it honestly kind of feels the same as cheap lining so it works perfectly for this jacket! 

I didn't bag the lining out well at all, this is definitely going on the list for watching a bunch of youtube videos on and reading lots of blogs.  I didn't find the Lisette blog guide very easy to folow - if anyone knows of one please let me know in the comments.  I tried a couple of times, but I ended up topstitching stuff down because I think its ok on this style of jacket to have some visible stitching. 

Anyway this has spurred me on.  It isn't perfect by any stretch but its defintely wearable and I love it.  I  have already been playing pattern tetris on a pair of my husbands jeans that had ripped at the crotch to try and make a pale washed denim version. (with a rainbow lining...)  How cool will that be!  Hope this has been a little bit useful or interesting, let me know what you think of the jacket and if you have any other jacket recommendations.  I've got a ponte blazer to sew up and a seamwork jill to trace out .. outerwear here I come!