Ziggi played guitar

… and ukelele in my case.

As soon as I’ve heard of this pattern and the sewalong I wanted to sew this jacket. I already had this wool blend purchased months ago and it seemed the best option without buying more fabric (ok, I bought the lining, but you can’t just win all the time). I was between sizes 6 and 8 and I doubted a lot before deciding, because as many of you know, Style Arc just packs one size per envelope, so grading doesn’t work like for the other pattern companies. Finally I’ve sent a mail to Style Arc and they adviced size 8, and that I could sew with bigger side seam allowances. I was not sure, I didn’t want a baggy jacket (I hate loose clothes on my upper body) but I also didn’t want an unwearable one.

When planing the Ziggi I had in mind the coat I made last April. It’s a really beautiful coat, also made of a wool blend, but the ranges of temperature that allow me to wear it are very limited. I’m a cold chick and going out with an inadequate coat or jacket is no-go. My asthma gets worse with the cold and I tend to catch colds quite easily. So I was going to plan better for this jacket to make it wearable and enjoyable. Unlike all the other Ziggi’s I’ve seen online, mine was going to have a quilted lining. And that would also help with that half size extra.

I made the muslin in felt to have a feel of how it was going to be. The felt resulted to be very stiff but at least it had a similar weight to my wool blend. The first thing I noticed was the shoulders felt too wide on me and that the armscye was too low. I had difficulties lifting my arms and it created horrible wrinkles on the shoulder and arm. I also felt the upper sleeve to narrow. As I’ve said, I get cold easily so I would probably want to wear this jacket with a sweater underneath in many occasions. I was not sure if it was just the sleeve design or the seam joining the upper and the lower sleeve, so I decided to widen it and eliminate that seam. I was not planning on quilting any pieces so that seam didn’t add anything to me and created quite some problems. I also raised the armscye and narrowed the showlders. The result is not perfect and I might have stretched a bit my fabric while sewing the sleeves, but it’s good enough and it’s very comfortable now.

While making this jacket I couldn’t take my mind of  Bowie’s song and the jacket Alex Drake wears in Ashes to Ashes.

One day I’ll make one in leather. I’m not sure how clean I would be able to keep one in white leather but I like it.

The construction of the basic parts was quite straightforward. The front zip was easy enough and for the sleeves and pockets I found some resources on internet, tutorials by Communing with Fabric and Corecoture. For bagging the lining I followed this wonderful video.

 

I apologize for the quality of these pictures. I finished the jacket more than a week ago but first, I didn’t have the time, and then, I was struggling with my HIT issues. I’m slowly finding out what I can eat and I had a couple of bad days, starving and with no energies. I’m also skipping make up completely these days to avoid adding more products to the equation. So all those things together made for bad pictures and and a hideous aspect. I know I look quite bad in those, but postponing could mean never blogging this garment in which I put so much effort. I had to share it and I also had to be honest and explain why it took so long to blog it and why I look like shit in these pictures. And my last reason and maybe the most important: I need to keep my life as normal as possible, and these last days I’ve been feeling kind of paralyzed. I just want to leave that state.

We took them on two different days. The ones at home are taken with an DSLR but the light is quite bad. The ones outside are taken with Koen’s phone one day later. My dark circles are not getting any improvement.

We were having quite worm weather lately but it cooled down a bit during the weekend. This jacket is perfect for weather like this or for more typical Spring evenings, since it tends to cool down at night substantially here in Madrid.

And I love my lining. I know that it’s much less fancy than the other ones I’ve seen on other sewists but this quilted lining makes my jacket quite warm. I see a lot of wearing here.

I know that my Thurlow trousers look a bit loose. I’ve lost 3 kg in the last days but I think I’m stable now and I will probably reach my normal weight again as soon as I get used to my new diet. I have an appointment with a doctor next week. I hope he’ll clarify things a bit.