Yellow velvet blazer

I am in love with the color yellow and have been for the past 10 years. There aren't many shades of it I don't like except the greener/browner hues that tend to make me look sickly. My phone case in neon yellow - very easy to locate in my cavern of a purse. One time I pulled it out while wearing my neon yellow jeans and was asked if I match my phone case to my outfit on a daily basis. Ha! I only wish I had the time for that kind of fastidiousness. (Not that I would do it...) Where was I going with all this? Oh yes, I love everything yellow. So anyway, a year or so ago I spotted this yellow cotton velvet on fabricmartfabrics.com and had to have it. And what does one do with yellow velvet? Make a 70's inspired blazer of course. It's so obvious!

This is pattern 119 from the November 2009 issue of Burda. I really love to make and wear fitted jackets, and had my eye on this design for the past 3 years. Burda tends to be a few years ahead of runways in this country. The bomber jackets that were all over their magazines in 2008 and 2009 are now popping up everywhere. 70's fashions are coming back, people. Brace yourselves for it if you need to.

I really loved the wide (though cut down considerably from the pattern) notched collar, the fun pockets, the back V-yoke, the fully vented sleeves, and the miles of pick stitching. I made a muslin (in January) but for some reason only noted that it wasn't too small when I tried it on. The actual jacket body was tortuously fitted after it was cut out to get the fitted look I wanted.

Cotton velvet wrinkles like nobody's business. Take that into consideration if you are planning to ever sew with it. I like my jacket but oh my, after half a day of wearing it I look a bit disheveled. I have a few pairs of 3 hour shoes - meaning they become unbearably uncomfortable after wearing them for more then 3 hours - this will just have to be a 4 hour jacket. That gets taken off when I'm driving.

I did machine topstitching in the yellow thread I sewed the seams with, then went back with brown heavy duty polyester thread and did all the pick stitching by hand. And boy did that make it easier then trying to measure it out or eyeball it. It really helps that the machine stitches sink into the plush of the velvet; I'm not sure handstitching over machine stitches would work on a different type of fabric. I believe I cut the collar and lapels down by a whopping inch! Those were some really wide lapels/collar!

I was pretty sure the pockets as drafted were going to be huge and awkward looking, so I cut them smaller from the beginning. That turned out to be a mistake, so then I had to recut them both out and remake them the original size. Mine are stitched with the outer sides abutting the side seams, as opposed to them wrapping around to the back per the pattern design.

Finding buttons for this fabric proved difficult. All the yellow ones at my local fabric stores either weren't the right shade or were too childish looking. I finally settled on these brown ones with tan centers. Then I went back to get a third button to add under the top two and the 7/8" size had been discontinued! I had to get the bigger 1" buttons to get three the same size. Honestly, I should have stayed with the 2 button closure because the bottom of my jacket bunches up uncomfortably if I try to sit down with it buttoned closed. There is a reason longer jackets like these don't have buttons past the waist!

All my buttons were sewn on with thread shanks. Velvet is really thick and all of my buttons have 4 holes. If I'd tried to sew them on without the shank the fabric would have bunched unattractively beneath.

 These fully vented sleeve cuffs were my first lessons in mitered corners. (They were sewn before my previous dress; I put this project aside to finish that one.) You can see my tiny miscalculation on the buttonhole side. Burda, with it's notoriously bad instructions, completely dropped the ball in even mentioning how to finish off the sleeve vents. I had to really ponder what to do here, and I think it turned out pretty well.

This jacket design has a built in collar stand, something I've never seen before in a jacket. I love collar stands on blouses and dresses - insist on them in a pattern - and was really interested in seeing it here. If you look closely you can see the longer stitches of the pick stitching on the underside of the collar/lapel.

The matching Ambiance lining was ordered from voguefabricstore.com. I always go there for Ambiance if I can't find a good color match locally or from Mood. They have every color imaginable!

Here is the blackline drawing of the original design. I forgot to mention that I eliminated the welt buttonholes. I tried to do them, honestly. I am intimidated by welts but I went ahead and gave it my best shot. This velvet did not want to comply with tiny bits of fabric being sewn to it.

This is another project of mine that was labor intensive. I started work on it in January and worked on it for most of February. There were a number of times I wanted to heave it into the trashcan and move on. I do like it but I am feeling mostly relief at having it completed.