Vogue 7975: Chanel style jacket - Finished!

All done! After so much hand sewing its finally done! Its funny, not long after I started I was thinking about giving up it just seemed like so much work but by the end I was really enjoying it. I've been doing the hand sewing inside watching tv each night which has been nice, gives me something to do with my hands.



Things to remember for next time;

Use a wool boucle - the silk tweed is lovely but I think the quilting would have felt a lot more luxurious with a bit more thickness behind it.

Make sure to stop at least an 1" before the stitching lines and a couple of inches before the hem lines, including when fell stitching the lining. I went too close in some spots which made it really awkward when cutting the seam excess off or trying to shorten the sleeves/hem.

Don't just double knot the thread ends, triple knot them as I found some had come undone when I was sewing the trim on.

I read somewhere that its meant to take 70hours to make a Chanel jacket, I didn't do 70 it was roughly around 45hrs, which seems like heaps of work but it was only a couple of hours here and there with a couple of full days.
I can understand now why you use the best quality possible fabric though, after all that work its kind of disappointing to have used a polyester lining, but in some ways this was a practise go at the different techniques and I know I'll make more...eventually!




So the pattern info;
Vogue 7975
Size; 12
Adjustments; I did minimal adjustments on this jacket - a 1" petite adjustment and a 1/2" narrow shoulder adjustment. I cut the under sleeve on the bias to help with arm movement.
Would you make it again: Yes, I have one planned for me next!
Would you recommend it: Yes! I really like how it has the princess seams in the front and back for that extra shaping. I do see however that one of the new Vogue patterns (8804) is a Claire Shaeffer Chanel style jacket so I want to get it to compare it to this pattern.


All in all, not as scary as I thought! All the techniques are very easy they just take so much time, but I am very happy with how it turned out and Mum loves it!