Raven and Clover, Over and Over!


Once I saw the jacket from the Vogue Patterns website, I just had to get and make this!




Once I saw this Vogue 8491 pattern from the Vogue Patterns online site, I picked it up from the most recent JoAnn's sale! Lesson learned: Better to buy a few cool styles from a Vogue pattern sale online for a few dollars extra per pattern than spending much more than expected at JA's!


Pattern Description
"Misses/Misses' petite jacket, belt and dress: Semi-fitted, lined jacket with above elbow length sleeves, button closing and belt. Close-fitting, sleeveless, lined dress with darts, back zipper and slit opening." I made the jacket.


Size
Size 8-10-12. I really hoped to find the envelope with the next sizes up! Either somebody beat me to it or there were others that were misfiled! I took a leap of faith and cut out a 12. Semi-fitted as described? Vogue misled me and should have printed semi loose or about semi tent! Fortunately the belt pulled the jacket's look together.


Fabric
Cotton with slight stretch from Gorgeous Fabrics.
Dress with clover power!


Reactions to Pattern

* The front princess seams went together fine and constructing the raglan style sleeves were a pleasant reprieve from easing and setting in sleeves!

* I really like the belted look of this jacket and slightly bell sleeves. This is quite a change of scenery from the "poofy" sleeve top that I constructed recently.

* I liked the length of the jacket on me. I did not have to make any adjustments.

* I am still sort of in a quandary about the large lapels and the collarless neck maybe because I'm accustomed to wearing the "blazer" look: neck collar and lapel.

* I think Vogue mislabled the sewing level! I agree with the adjective easy, maybe because there are no sleeves to ease and set in the armscye and collar to assemble, but words "time consuming" should be included!

* Whoa, the jacket is more roomy than expected, even when I went down by a size! Fortunately there is a belt to cinch the waistline.



Directions

They were brief, to the point, and easy to follow. The illustrations were alongside the steps which were very helpful and speak for themselves. I found it helpful to mark on the wrong side of the fabric ("SLF", "SLB"), or put a colored dot stickie to distinguish among the FRONT and BACK sleeves pieces (their silhouettes look identical, except for the notches, if I had cut them well enough!). The directions assumed the that you know how to do basic techniques. For instance, Vogue assumes you know how to make buttonholes and slipstitch. Clipping curves at the princess seams is probably assumed that the sewist knows also since it was not mentioned.

Constructing lining starts with sewing the fabric facings with the side fronts and the rest is constructed the way as in the original jacket. Then the lining is placed right sides together with the original jacket and sewn at the outer edges, leaving a large enough gap at the lower hem to turn the jacket inside out, which I call the "quick and dirty" way to line a jacket. I would rather "bag" the lining for a more smoother finish especially at the bottom hem, where the lining tends to "peek" out, which I temporarily resolved with my handy dandy iron and tacking stitches.


Modifications
* I added another 1 1/2" to the belt length.
* I raised the lower button placement so that it is above the wrap around area.
* Since I was working with a print, I did my best to match the left and right fronts. I can see why I would next time add myself to the list of people who dread working with prints because of taking the time to align the prints of pieces sewn together to achieve fashion symmetry. Coincidentally, the top button placement nearly coincided with a certain part of the print that would look aesthetically and geometrically ideal, (buttonholes, buttons placed inside a printed shape instead of "on" its edges)


Conclusion
Very easy??? I recommend that the big 4 (even Burda does this!) come up with a category for "easy, but time consuming"! I do recommend this pattern because it is really straightforward to sew and for its distinctive styling, but for now one of these will do for me now! I plan to make the dress sometime soon.