Finished: The Sewaholic Minoru Jacket

Yep, I "participated" in the Sewaholic Minoru jacket sew along. And by participated, I mean that I made my Minoru jacket at the same time that the sew along was happening. Only a lot quicker. And this is not a criticism of the sew along, but more of an issue of when I could actually sit down and sew.




Never mind that, though, and let's just get on with seeing the pictures and some observations. First, my fabric is a raincoating from Gorgeous Fabrics, and the lining is from fabric.com. With that out of the way, here ya go complete with observations:

• this is definitely not a beginner pattern. With the sew along, advanced begginer. Without it, intermediate at least.
• my semi-plasticky raincoating frayed a lot.
• if you look closely, you will see that the hem doesn't line up in the center front.

• I cut the size 12, and only made one alteration
• I shortened the sleeves by 2-1/2" inches!
• my cuffs look a little weird. I think that's more of a fabric issue.

• I love the collar with the zipper and hidden hood.
• did you read about my fraying fabric?
• I should have lined the hood, even with the finishing of the seam.
• it is quite possible to iron this raincoating fabric, even without a press cloth. From the line going horizontally across my butt, it appears that I missed a spot.

• I didn't add the inside pocket because with all the coats I've ever owned with inside pockets, I've never used them.
• I think I used the wrong side of the lining as the right side. It was hard to tell. Oops.
• my inside hem looks, well, pretty bad. Did you read about the uneven hem meeting in the front? All related.

• I did put outside pockets in the side seams. I can't have a coat without them.
• I put them a little bit too low.
• Can you tell that I'm actually wearing it in the rain?

• though entirely functional, I look dumb with the hood up, and this is the best pic I have of it being worn. None from the front.
• I love the length.

Conclusion: it's a great jacket pattern! I particularly like it in this lightweight version. If I were to make it with a bulkier fabric/lining, I would go up a size, and then make a better adjustment to the back length so it didn't get too bunchy.

Fixing a Zipper on RTW

Son Kyle recently (oh, around Thanksgiving) asked me if I could fix the zipper on his Mountain Hard Wear jacket. The pull was gone and some teeth near the bottom were completely broken off. I said, maybe.


My first thought was, heck, I'll just get him a new one. I hadn't bought the current one, as it was a gift from an ex-girlfriend. Actually she didn't buy this one. She bought him a size large. He traded the large with a friend who had a medium but wanted the large. Kyle wanted a medium. Confused yet? But in the bargain, he got the one with the broken zipper.


Anyway, back to my first thought. I discovered those babies are price-y!! Certainly more than I wanted to spend, so repair it was. I bought a separating zipper from Sew True Supply which wasn't quite as long as the coat's, but very close. After doing some research (i.e., I zipped the half of the new zipper to the good half of the old zipper), there was a good chance I would only have to replace half a zipper.


Step 1 then... rip out the old one. As I ripped, I took pictures so I could remember what it looked like. I won't bore you with those, but if you're doing something similar, it's a good, and pretty obvious, way to have a record.


Here it is, sans zipper:

See the "fur". Yep, it was lots of fun to rip that sucker out, especially around the collar and the hem.


OK, then it was just a matter of sewing the new one back in. Boom, sewed it in, just like that. Zipped it up and whoa! There are seams at the yoke and collar that kinda sorta should really be lined up. Whoops. Starting with the yoke seamline, I picked out the stitches around it so that I could finagle it back into lining up. The fabric is stretchy so it was pretty easy. Then I did the same thing by the collar seamline.


You insert the zipper first sewing right sides together, then flip it back and topstitch it folded back. Does that make sense? I did the ripping out, lining up before the final topstitching took place for also obvious reasons.

Finally, the last spot to give me a little trouble was the little piece of fabric that I'm calling the neck guard, up by the collar. Putting it back in was a bit of free style sewing, but if it's not in correctly, no one can tell.

I'm not a huge fan of clothing repairwork, but this is one case where it really, really paid off. The new zipper is about 1/4" shorter than the old one, but again, it doesn't affect, well, anything. Kyle is warm and toasty once again!