I’m counting this ensemble—a jacket and pants—as my final Make Nine project for 2023! I’ve had the pants pattern pieces cut out for quite a while, and the other fabrics were in the stash. Both were waiting for inspiration and motivation to strike… not to mention finding time to sew.
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| Cotton/linen jacket, Make Nine 2023 |
Event deadline = Motivation
With my plans to attend the International Quilt Market, I had the motivation needed to get on with the sewing. It always feels a bit special to wear something “new” to a business event, so this was the perfect impetus for a sewing episode.
Patterns and materials
The pants pattern is a frequently used one for me—the Valencia pants [from The Sewing Workshop]. The Raggy Jacket is my go-to pattern for a jacket. I’ve made several jackets over the years with this pattern. The pattern pieces are sized and I’m familiar with the construction.
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| The Valencia Pants and Raggy Jacket patterns: both frequently used for my garment makes. |
Pants and Jacket materials:
- the pants fabric is a yarn-dyed woven [Diamond Textiles]. The pants were already cut out, complete with tailor tacks!
- the outer fabric for the jacket is a cotton/linen blend [FIGO Fabrics]
- the lining is a cotton voile [Art Gallery Fabrics]
- middle layer of the jacket was a light colored cotton quilting fabric
- the decorative quilting thread is a variegated 40 wt cotton thread [YLI]
Garment construction
The Valencia pants are a one-seam pants with a partial elastic wasteband. My hack for this pattern is the addition of two patch pockets. Since the pieces were already cut out and marked, this was a relatively quick finish.
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| The Valencia one-seam pants. |
The jacket required more time. After laying out and cutting all the jacket pieces, quilting guidelines were marked with a Chaco Liner. I “quilt” the individual jacket pieces—fronts, back, sleeves—with the fashion fabric, a cotton or muslin middle layer, and the lining.
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| Marking stitching guidelines with a white Chaco liner. |
The quilting stitch pattern is a combination of a straight stitch and a built-in decorative stitch on my machine. It looks a bit like barbed wire, but it complemented the graphic, wood cut design on the fabric.
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| Decorative stitch pattern for quilting the jacket pieces. |
One of the finishing tasks for the jacket is deciding on the buttons. This is always an extensive auditioning process. (I admit I have a “healthy” button collection.)
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| Choosing buttons. Always, so many options! |
Matching the fabric motifs
The print of this fabric made for a challenging layout process—making sure the motifs lined up. It was not the best choice of fabrics for the time constraints and deadline, but I was curious about sewing with a linen fabric and in the end, it turned out fine. I learned a lot about pattern layout and lining up motifs from making my kalamkari jacket, using the same jacket pattern.
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| My new cotton/linen jacket. A Make Nine 2023 finish. |
Make Nine 2023 is complete!
This concludes my Make Nine Challenge for this year. My new jacket and pants are fulfilling the “UFO” prompt. It’s been a productive year.
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| Fulfilling the “UFO” prompt for Make Nine 2023. |
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| Completed Make Nine 2023 tracker. |
