Finishing things up and a new jacket

I am making progress! I have made a pot of blueberry tea to have while I blog. Then I have to study some for this test I am taking on Monday. It may lead to a job as an adjudicator at a tribunal so keep your fingers crossed. Then I will finally have somewhere other than school whence I can wear all my fancy duds! (Hmm, that doesn't look right but my understanding is that "whence" means "to where" so it should be correct.) I'll alternate between studying and sewing to keep fresh at both.

First I took a photo of the two tops I finished. I haven't worn them yet but I have worn the cream silk one I made three times now! It works beautifully under a suit jacket and I can get warm at the front of the class without dying from dehydration.

I finally sewed a buttonhole on that checked jacket and finished it with the large, slightly sparkly gold button that won the contest. There is a sparkly gold thread that runs through the brown stripes in the check and I think the button goes well with the whole thing. Not having worn this yet, I will reserve judgment on the total effect.

I finished the wool skirt. As usual, I converted darts to ease - those are the wrinkles you see pinned into the skirt as it is attached to the facing. I also basted the lining to the skirt around the top before sewing it all to the facing. That's that line of stitching you see showing on the lining.

Because this is such nice fabric and I want the skirt to look polished, I sewed seam binding to the raw edge of the hem and hand sewed the hem up. The lining hem has not been sewed yet - that's the raw pinked edge you see.

Because the skirt is surprisingly heavy, I sewed hangar tabs to the facing. It makes the skirt hang like this and I have to iron it the morning I want to wear it, to get those drape marks out.

But if I hang it with clothespins like this, it falls off the hangar after a while.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about my old LL Bean barn jacket. I have had this great coat for over 15 years now and I used to wash it whenever the dog put her muddy paws on it so it got washed often. Now it has frayed around the pockets (which are lined at the edge with dark green corduroy),

and it has frayed on the sleeves where I used to turn up the cuffs, which are also lined at the bottom edge with the corduroy. I still think I can get some wear out of it so I am wondering if I should get some gimp or other braid and sew it over the broken bits?

That said, my next project is a new, cool weather jacket. I thought this pattern was so cute, but of course, I cannot imagine making a jacket that you wear outside in anything other than full length sleeves! Maybe someone meant for this jacket to be worn walking around the mall but if I was inside, it would be too hot and when I am outside, I want proper sleeves. So I am going to make it in the full sleeve but with the slash pocket of the other views (A and B). I have not decided on the buttons but I think I will be going for 6 of them, not 4, for better control in the wind. It is certainly not a jacket I would wear when it's minus 10C but I think with the right layers and accessories, I could wear it to minus 5C. I'll let you know later.

When you wear some kind of outer garment 9 months of the year, you want a selection and you want one of them to be red. I have some "boiled wool" in a nice bright red here, although I think it is mixed with some nylon. For a change, I didn't pre-wash it and so once a year, I will have to dry clean this. I think I was afraid the fabric would shrivel into weirdness so I decided to go for dry cleaning later. I also got some "fashion polyester" for the lining. Instead of getting "regular" lining, I saw this fun polka dot stuff on sale and thought it would be cute whenever I took the jacket off. I have not made this pattern before so I suppose I am risking a bit here but it is a coat and so it won't be fitted too closely and I think I can get away with not making a muslin - which I never make anyway. If it doesn't work for me, some lucky Sally Ann client will get a unique jacket!