Butterick 5616 - White textured cotton crop jacket

For the last several years, I have been on the hunt for a casual white jacket. I already have two cropped jackets in my wardrobe - one in denim and one in tan - and they get worn all the time in the fall and winter. I like a casual jacket to be slightly fitted, have pockets or a collar for some volume up top, and it definitely needs to be washable. Not finding any that fit the bill, it finally dawned on me to make my own.

I used a textured medium weight cotton stretch fabric that's been in my stash for at least 10 years. This was the first textured fabric I ever bought. I found it at JoAnn's and loved it so much that I never could decide on a project good enough for it.

The pattern description is for a "very loose fitting jacket", so I cut a size 8 - normally I cut size 10 for my top half. I did not make a muslin because it's not fitted, but maybe I should have. I wanted the length of the cropped jacket but also wanted the bottom band of the regular length, so I chopped 2 inches off the bottom. I also cut 2.5 inches off the bottom of the sleeves because I wanted them to end just past the elbows.

This was suppose to be an easy project as I was coming off yet another wadder, but it was anything but. Even though I'd cut an 8, the back as still really wide. Of course I did not notice this until the back band was attached and completely slip stitched down along the inside. Thankfully I had not yet topstitched. Off it came and I had to go back and taper the side back seams in a total of 2 inches. Those had already been topstitched. The sleeves were really wide as well, and were pulled in a total of 1 inch. The rest was pretty standard as far as jackets go, but my machine did not want to sew the button holes on this stretchy cotton. I had added interfacing along the button band, but only on the top side, so the bottom side stretched horribly. Ripping out teeny tiny machine stitched button holes over and over is incredibly frustrating. I almost threw it in the trash and the only reason I persevered was because I did not want to go another week without something to put on this blog. Funny, right?

Let's just pretend my shirt is not tucked up in my waistband, okay?

 
I eliminated the buttons on the cuffs because I did not want my elbows sticking out of the small openings and also because I forgot to buy the buttons for them. I cut the collar, yokes, sleeve cuffs, bottom band, pocket and pocket flaps on the cross grain. The underside of the pockets and sleeve cuffs were cut in cotton sheeting fabric left over from the lining of this dress. I also underlined the yokes with it so they would not stretch down with the weight of the jacket.

These buttons are pure white, I promise.

You can see the underlined yokes and perhaps the seams finished with my overlocking foot in the next
picture. I've always had some weird fear of underlining but it was actually really easy.

This pattern has a lot of details that make it look like a RTW denim jacket. I particularly love all the topstitching, although you can't really see it with my textured fabric. Now that I've figured out how to get the fit I like, I can definitely see myself making it again.