Shawl We Dance?
Heather's first choice

Heather and I went to Joann's yesterday for the Simplicity $1.99 sale. I was not able to find the OOP patterns from my list and just happened to buy something not on my list. The Simplicity 2858 jackets seemed cute, stylish and easy to make. I was drawn to the the jacket with the shawl collar. Later in the evening I cut the Simplicity 2858 jacket with the shawl collar and short sleeves and completed sewing the entire jacket the next evening (sans the lining).




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My jacket


Here I Sew This Again. I like Dolly in this groovy do.

UPDATE - Second Version
I used my remaining Dolce and Gabana silk tweed (purchased from Emma One Sock) from a previous project. This material is somewhat tricky to work with (some fraying). Fusible interfacing reduced some problems.

Changes
* Lined the entire jacket
* Sewed three black and gold colored buttons, purchased at a local's Michael's craft store. I spent $4.95 for an entire grab bag full of "fancy" looking buttons.

Conclusion
I plan to sew the longer version with the other collar. I highly recommend this versatile pattern!







Second version (yellow) update on December 15, 2008. Jacket actually completed a week earlier.

Pattern Description
"Misses' lined jacket with collar and sleeve variations". Since this is my first or muslin version, I skipped the lining.

Size
Misses' 4-6-8-10-12. From my experience with my first Project Runway jacket, I sewed a "12" instead of my usual "14", and was glad that I did! However, the "12" is still quite roomy. The jacket appears more boxy than the jackets pictured on the envelope.


Fabric Used
A lightweight corduroy from le Wal Marche for $1 a yard. Since it's not the best quality, I used this as my my first or muslin version to figure out size and fit issues. Total cost of jacket (pattern, fabric, buttons): approximately $6.




Favorite Features
*Shawl collar
*Short raglan sleeves with pleated sides
*Cropped style


Other features
* I skipped the croquis feature which I was already familiar with from my Simplicity 3538 jacket and went directly to figuring out which pieces I wanted to use for the cropped, shawl collar, and short sleeved version. I used the layout with the "short jacket with shawl collar" which consists of piece 2: side panel, piece 3: back (not cut on a fold), piece 8: front containing the under shawl collar, piece 9: front facing containing the upper shawl collar, piece 10: neck band and pieces 11 and 12 for the sleeve front and sleeve back, respectively.

*The assembly of the neck band to the front piece containing the under shawl collar was vague. I took a brief break from sewing to clear my mind and returned to this step.




Directions
* Overall, the slightly jumpy directions and illustrations were fine, except for the illustration in step #7 of the section entitled "jacket with shawl collar" where the side panel is joined to the entire front containing the under shawl collar (the left and right fronts are joined at a center seam). From my perspective, it seems that one of the side panels was inverted, but I may be wrong. I realized that I attached the incorrect edge of the side panel, when I was not able to properly ease it onto one of the front edges! I double checked the pattern pieces for the notches, and the single notches attaches to the front containing the under shawl collar piece and the double notches will attach to the corresponding notches of a back piece of the jacket. The illustration does not show this step clearly.

* I agree with Kdburkhardt in her review about step #39 which succeeds the attachment of the lower edge of the neck band to the back neckline, with notches aligned and right sides together. The illustration seems to show that the fronts containing the under collar are stitched directly to the neckline. I was not able to decipher the position of the neck band with respect to the neckline and the fronts containing the lower collar.

* After some mind dancing, I discovered that the the upper edge of the neck band aligned between the corners at the double "L" portion of the fronts that contain the under collar (created by the center seam that joins those two large front pieces). The clipped corners of this front piece will surround the upper corner of the neck band, while matching and aligning notches. Also, the sides of the neck band will share a seam with the edges of the fronts below their clipped corners at each double "L" section. Hopefully this will be easy to figure out when you examine the pieces as you sew.


Modifications
*Omitted the pocket. I did not want to add something more to the already busy striped print.

*Omitted the lining for my muslin version. The fabric due to its lower grade quality did not deserve to be lined.

*Created an interfaced neck band facing to be attached to the fronts with the upper shawl collar (joined at the center seam). After I sewed the fronts of the upper shawl collar to the fronts containing the lower shawl collar, right sides together, I sewed the neck band facing to the double "L" curve portion of the fronts that contain the upper shawl collar. Then I turned the fronts with the upper shawl collar right side out, while turning the neck band facing to the inside. I slipstitched the neck band facing to the wrong side of the neck band from the inside of the jacket.

* I sewed two shiny golden woven-textured buttons to offset the stripes.


Conclusion
I definitely plan to sew a lined version of this in fabric of better quality!

I highly recommend this versatile pattern giving you the opportunity to make jackets with varied length, sleeve and collar options!