Get The White Glasses

Does this pattern ring a bell? It is the same pattern featured in the previous post, “Measuring Up To My Great Grandma”. Simplicity released this pattern twice but marketed it differently. This one is a vintage pattern reprint, and in my previous post, it is pattern number S0740, which they marketed using copyrighted super hero fabric.

Since I have already made the dress, I decided to tackle the jacket, and to tackle it for myself! This one is all mine!

I chose this fabric. I had bought it on clearance and was holding onto it, knowing that I had jackets coming up in my sewing. I have more jackets in my pattern stash too, so this won’t be the last.

The pattern called for me to make coat welts. What the heck is a coat welt, you might be asking, because I was! Remember, I am a self taught seamstress, so technical terms escape me. But I quickly learned that this is a coat welt. It goes on the outside and hides the pocket. The degree of difficulty in making this jacket hit me straight away. What have I done?!

I had made welts on vest pockets once before, although I don’t know if that pattern called them welts or something else. I made an old west style vest for my cousin James. I was by no means experienced with welts.

Sewing them though did ring a bell since I had done it years ago. Once I got the pockets on I sewed the front, back, and sleeves together. I didn’t get any pictures of that because I was stressed and was concentrating so hard!

With the sleeves attached it was time to hem them and that was all done by hand using a catch-stitch hem. Wondering what a catch-stitch hem is? Me too!! So to the internet I went to quickly teach myself a new technique.

I needed to attach the collar and make sure that it was placed properly on the jacket. Guinevere to the rescue! (See previous blog post “My Dress Form, A Sewing Story”) Having Guinevere made it a lot easier to pin it correctly. In this picture it looks like Grandma and Grandpa are admiring the jacket, or laughing at me, ha-ha!

I had to cut out all of the liner. Yes, this jacket is completely lined. I’ve never made anything so complicated before! I just had to keep sewing, one little sewing step at a time.

Got the liner assembled and sewn into the jacket facings. Time to put it all together. Just keep sewing….

I again turned to Guinevere for help. I had to be precise while pinning the jacket facing and liner to the jacket. It’s looking a little “Dracula’s cape” at this point, but I wasn’t finished yet.

More hemming? And all by hand? Lucky me. By this point I was getting pretty good at the catch-stitch hem. It’s basically the “by hand” blind hem stitch. I was glad to learn this technique, I’m sure it will come in handy on future projects.

Then I got to a really fun part, choosing buttons! I love buttons!

I had an enormous stash to begin with, because Grandma had given a ton to me when she was still alive. After she passed away I received the rest of her button collection. Grandma’s button collection was several old tins full of buttons. The fun thing about them is, they’re not just her buttons, but my Great Grandma’s buttons as well. I have actually been able to date some of the buttons from Grandma’s collection and they date back to WWI and before.

When I choose buttons for a project I usually have several choices, and then I send pictures of the buttons and the project to my think tank for opinions. My think tank on this sewing challenge is my sister Michelle, sister in-laws Summer and Shelby, cousin Elizabeth, daughter Mia and nieces Kira, Jenna, and Khloe. It’s never a quick process, a lot of group texting is involved. 🙂

I needed four large buttons for the jacket, and as luck would have it, Grandma had some. My final decision was these buttons. They were old and worn, and in the tin with the WWI buttons, so I think they belonged to my Great Grandma Sophrona. But no matter their orgin, one of my Grandmas had saved them to be used again.

Time to make my Grandmas proud, and put these buttons back into the fashion world.

They were still tied together with some really old string.

Stitching away. By hand. Again.

This jacket was a huge undertaking! I couldn’t just take simple pictures in my living room. Good thing I know a guy! 🙂 He collects all of the old store signs from my little home town, and has built a small, vintage town on his property. It was the perfect place to take pictures in my vintage style jacket.

My make up is Besame Cosmetics. They make vintage style make up in vintage shades. I’m obsessed with them.

I bought my pink dress at an antique store in Georgia. It is a 1960’s original.

The pink flower broach belonged to Grandma, and was a perfect match!

Waiting impatiently for a pretend bus to nowhere, ha!

But before my photo shoot I remembered Grandma’s glasses. We talked about them during this visit. She said she picked them out because she had some in the 60’s that she just loved.

It wasn’t hard to find some pictures of her wearing the 1960’s glasses, courtesy of my cousin Melanie helping me with my shenanigans.

Looking cute and very 1960’s indeed!

So I had to get at least one picture in Grandma’s glasses. I couldn’t see a thing, by the way. But they sure do complete the outfit!

I was happy with how the jacket turned out. I learned so much from making it. I also learned that just because something is hard, or because you’ve never done it before, doesn’t mean that it can’t be done! I’ll try not to be intimidated on the next difficult pattern that I come to.

I made this jacket, I can sew the next difficult thing, right?

Thinking about Grandma on this sew brought me to the realization that you should always wear what you love. Life is short, get the white glasses.

As for me, onto the next!