Rhythm Notion



It must be the color, style, combined with the silver shiny buttons that made me have flashbacks of Janet Jackson dancing in her "Rhythm Nation" video. Wow, performers actually sung about songs with a meaningful message and danced to great choreography back then. Fast forward 19 years and I'm seeing various versions of Janet's military style jacket popping up in the current fashion scene.


Britney, Cristina, Beyonce.... what have you SEWN for us lately?

Pattern Description
A "2 hour fashion express" pattern: Unlined, semi-fitted above wait jacket has dolman sleeves with length variations and with or without collar. View A has snap closure at neck. View B has double-breasted, buttom and buttonhole closures. View C has front tabs with buckle without prong, front hook and eye closures.

Size
Misses' 8-10-12-14. I sewed a "14".

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it?
Somewhat, except mine screamed 80's/early 90's. There's not much talent, fun, and innovation in the pop current scene, Composer/musician/singer Alicia Keys is a notable exception. Nostalgia has been setting in as I get older.
While sewing this jacket, I might have been hearing in the corners of my mind a much younger and cuter Simon Le Bon singing "Please, please sew me now, is there something I should SEW?" and wearing that oh-so-80's white jacket.


Favorite Features
*Cropped style although I would have preferred it an inch longer.
*3/4 length sleeves
*Few pattern pieces to work with (front, back, collar, front facing, back facing)
*Contoured back seam, which flatters the back and sides. I'll keep this feature in mind to morph this with my other favorite short jacket patterns.
*Boxy upper look that tapers to the waistline, if you ignore the sleeves.


Other Features
*Needs more than the one snap closure that is attached below the wearer's left side. To keep the fronts from flapping out and sliding (or a jacket malfunction), there should be one below the wearer's right neck, and one on the wearer's lower left.

*The sleeves are a bit baggy and unstructured for my taste. Maybe it stems from the nature of dolman sleeves that flare out at the ends. I recall dolman sleeves typical of 80's fashions. I discovered a helpful and interesting SEW NEWS glossary of types of sleeves

*"2-hour" finishing time is a bit misleading, especially for those who are not "speedy" and prefer to finish the seams. I slipstitched the bottom hem after pressing 1 1/4" hem with a scant 1/8" machine-stitched hem. Maybe my eyes deceived me, but I did not find the directions on how to finish the sleeve hems. I turned in a 1/4" machine-stitched hem and slipstitched a 2" hem.

*Positioning the asymmetric collar to look as close to the picture on the envelope took some time.


Fabric
Denim colored cotton poplin, great for muslins.


Directions
That's the way this pattern SEWS...
They are easy to follow and brief with more than decent illustrations. The neckline and that of the facing (each front facing is connected to each end of the back facing) are staystitched. I made sure that I transferred the notches and markings (dots, squares, and triangles) to the collar pieces and the neckline.

Missed it much, I missed it by SEW much
I had to temporarily detach myself from my habit of "centering the collar" at the neckline. I spent the longest time getting the collar to be asymmetric as featured on the envelope and in the illustrations while aligning the corresponding markings to the neckline! After comparing collar to the original pattern piece in terms of the markings and the length taking into account the seams, I did not find serious discrepancies. I eased the neckline a little by using loose and long machine stitches. I basted the collar to the neckline so that the marked triangles align at the shoulder seams and the notches align (one was closer to the wearer's right front edge and the other was further in distance from the wearer's left front edge).

I did not experience difficulty while attaching the front facings to the front edges of the jacket. I iron pressed the back facing to the inside and tacked it to the inside to prevent it from flopping about. The tricky part was where to sew the snap on the wearer's left side so that it does not interfere with the left collar just above it. I spent an inordinate amount of time situating the snap so that the the left collar does not get bunched above the corner where the snap would be. Due to the nature of the fabric coupled with fusible interfacing, my collar is rigid, which made things more bearable. However, I foresee the collar being floppy or bulky with other types of fabric.

Modifications
They're all part of the Rhythm Notions
*Added three hexagonal buttons
*Need to add a snap at the bottom to prevent some sort of jacket "malfunction".
*Shortened the sleeves by 2".


Conclusion
Let's SEW Awhile
I did not have a "2 hour express" experience with this pattern. It was actually more like a "5 hour escapade!" I do highly recommend this pattern for its simplicity and stylishness. I don't plan to sew this asymmetrically collared style in the near future. However, I plan to sew the version with the stand up collar for my sister.