This is the finished jacket that I did my bound buttonholes for, based on Burda 7579.  I made it up on request out of the most lovely wool.  It was a perfect marriage of fabric and pattern, let me tell you.  A complete and utter pleasure to sew.  The suit has a matching pencil skirt, quite pegged, with a CB hemline slit, which I pulled from a vintage Lagerfeld pattern in my stash.  It’s a beautiful ensemble and fits perfectly (although I can’t say that for Vintage Judy in these photos).

The jacket has been shortened by about 2 inches.  I was a bit worried about the proportion/placement of the pockets, which also have flaps, on the shorter version but it’s working nicely when the flaps are tucked in.   So I’m leaving them tucked in.  I did the pocket welts on the bias for consistency’s sake since the buttonholes are bias, too, never mind that they just looked waaaay better done on the bias that either straight or cross grain.  The picture below is before shortening the jacket.

The jacket doesn’t fit Vintage Judy well at all as very evident in this photo, and it desperately needs to be pressed, but isn’t the back belt a nice detail?  The buttons were quite heavy, so I tacked them through all layers to support them.  I raised the collar stand by 5/8″ to order because it needed to sit a bit higher, and re-drafted the collar shape itself so that it could be tacked and stand up.

As you all know, if you’ve been reading posts lately, I am not a patternmaker or tweaker or draper or any such “er” (although I can sew reasonably well, even if I do say so myself) and the little change to this collar put me into a problem-solving line-drawing tailspin for a bit.  And then I leafed through the September Vogue and found this lovely little Chanel number.Which gave me visual directions for my little change on the collar.  It worked nicely and was easy to do (thank God!).  And, if I can ever get my sewing queue organized, gave me an idea for an almost identical tweed in my stash….  But haven’t you heard that before?  I have loads of pattern/fabric marriages to make official, but never get around to 99% of them…..