Is It A Fail? McCalls 7817

What had happen was!  You know I have some drama if I start a sentence like that LOL.  No, really, what happened was, I wanted to participate in an Instagram sewing challenge highlighting black sewing pattern designers.  I went looking through my stash for a pattern made by a black designer.    First of all, there are a hand full, out of the hundreds of patterns I have, I had maybe ten that were from people of color (quadruple eye roll).  I chose a Khalia Ali’s pattern because I already had it and I wanted something modern from her, I’ll just say that.  I also wanted to try an Indi pattern (another eye roll) not many, I’ve sewn Style Sew Me patterns before, but I didn’t want to make the same thing so I started working on McCalls 7817.

I’m at the 24th hour (insert eye roll), so I’m like, can I get a muslin made and then, do I have time to sew and get it photographed?  This looked easy enough so I skipped the muslin stage and went straight to research.  Carolyn from Diary of a Sewing Fanatic made this pattern so I read through her blog post, drooled over her fabric and went to work.  It seamed true to size and she didn’t identify any big issues so I pulled out a piece from my stash that I didn’t love but thought I liked (insert quadruple eye roll) so if it didn’t come out right, no harm, no foul, right?  Let me stop right here, am I the only one that has fabric that I don’t “love” still in my stash?  What am I looking at when I pick stuff up?  what are you looking at when you pick stuff up?  I don’t think it spoke to me, or maybe it did at the time.  Anyway, squirrel… I get off track all the time.

I looked at the finished measurements and decided I could proceed, now, here’s where it gets hairy, I thought I had enough to make view B (insert eye roll) I made my adjustments and cut the fabric, with just enough to spare.  Or, so I thought, first of all I didn’t have enough for the bottom part of the sleeve (insert triple eye roll) andddddd, second of all, I forgot to lengthen the front facing when I lengthened the rest of the garment!  I mean, really!!!!!  I had a Tim Gunn talk with myself, you need to make this work.  On top of that, my daughter comes in and says it looks like scrubs!  First of all, who asked you!!! lol.

As I have this conversation with myself, I wanna know why this is so dramatic, why didn’t I walk my seams like I typically do?  Why didn’t you just scrap this project and pull out some other fabric?  We will never know the answers to these questions LOL!!  If this pattern didn’t work I didn’t want to “waste fabric” so I needed to make this work, and ya’ll know I love purple, I would wear this!

Ok, so let’s recap, not enough fabric for the bottom part of the sleeve (that was the best part of the darn jacket), no facing because it’s too small, and, because you didn’t have the facing that scrapped the collar which I spent a good bit of time lining up and basting.. I think that’s it lol..

The fabric is a flocked satin (mid weight) from Joann.  The instructions were good and it came together pretty quick.  Since I didn’t have a facing, I used single fold bias tape to finish the front edge.  I also hemmed the sleeve and wore it like I meant to make a Kimono type sleeve LOL.  and I left off the collar.  I did my normal forward shoulder adjustment and when I basted the shoulder I realized the center front gaped a bit so I I took a bit off the shoulder at the front only thus shortening the wrap.  I cut a 24W at the shoulder and bust and graded to a 26W for the hip.  The jacket is a bit loose and her patterns seem true to size so I didn’t need cut an even smaller shoulder and do an FBA.  This jacket fit but when I tied the inside ribbon it bunched a bit, it’s intended to be slightly boxy, at least view b is.   I would add a little more to the hip so it can lay flat in the back if I want to accentuate my waist.  It had about five inches of ease at the hip, but when I pulled the waist tight, it bunched.

I think that’s enough of my drama, what do you think, do you agree with baby girl, does this have a “scrubs”feel?  I see this as a semi fail because I really wanted the sleeve and collar, but the print isn’t horrible and I did finish and style it.  I think this will get lots of wear this spring and I will make this again soon with all the pieces LOL.

What’s up next?  I made another pattern from a black designer and I’ll be sharing that on Thursday so stay tuned!