And this is why I rarely sew for myself

One of the many items on my To Do before Christmas List is "Make myself a fleece jacket". It's been there for a while, and keeps getting overtaken by other projects because, well, sewing for a size 16 woman is nowhere near as fun as sewing for children! I don't have that 'cute' factor that comes in spades with my little blighters, and children's clothes rarely feature such shaping details as darts.

But on the other hand, I need a new fleece jacket and RTW seems to come only in varying degrees of shapelessness. I wear them because I can throw them in the washing machine and they'll dry overnight (something that you only truly appreciate when you have children), and fleece is warm and comfortable. But I never see Yummy Mummies in fleece jackets. I'm not a Yummy Mummy myself, but I dream of becoming one. So when I saw this pattern I decided to give it a shot! The lime green is very cute, don't you think?

You will also note the princess line seams and absence of darts. Perfect!


So, I bought the pattern, got some fleece backed faux suede on Ebay (yes, you can see where this is wadding to, can't you?) and got stuck in. It was pleasantly strange not having to trace the pattern first and had to keep reminding myself that seam allowances were already on the pattern when I was cutting it out.


Well, I didn't like cutting out the fabric, but thought that was just me. My machine didn't like sewing it, and I thought that was just my machine playing up. I was wrong on both counts - the actual villain of the piece was the fabric itself. Stiff, unyielding, absolutely no drape at all. I plugged away, waiting for the moment when it would all come together, the jacket would remove its specs, throw its hair back and I would say "why.... why you're beautiful!". And I'm still waiting!

Yes, it's a wadder. I'm embarrassed to be blogging it, but through our mistakes we learn, and boy did I did learn a lot on this project. The shoulders are too wide (not sure how I'm gonna fix that on a raglan sleeve - cut along the size 14 line perhaps?), the jacket needs to be longer, and I do not like the extremely visible zip detail.

As you can see, I can never wear this jacket undone:



Correction, I can never wear this jacket. Well, not outside the house - it isn't even good enough to garden in. But I still need a fleece jacket and it still needs to be cute. So there's some cerise fleece on the way. I'll cut the right front up the zip placement line so that I can insert the zip with only the teeth are on show, correct the fitting issues and I will, as God's my witness, end up with a Yummy Mummy Fleece Jacket. Though probably not until the New Year. And if the last pattern doesn't work for me, then there's always this one:

Reader, I am On A Mission.