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finished: Alabama Chanin Classic Jacket

Hi!

Lots going on around here lately. Thing One: I bought a new sewing machine!


This is my new Bernina 480, purchased from Sew Creative in Beverly, which recently closed. Sorry I don't have a better picture.

I love this thing—it's fancy! I'm still learning my way around it.

Thing Two: I was supposed to have another article in Vogue Patterns Magazine, but it folded! Bummer. It's on lighting for sewists, and if you want a copy, feel free to contact me on le social and I'll send it to you. I interviewed the gadget person from the Carroll Center for the Blind, and he recommended a lot of great stuff.

(Really going to miss Vogue Patterns—it was my favorite sewing magazine! RIP.)

And finally, Thing Three: I completed an Alabama Chanin Classic Jacket, from their Sewing Patterns book. The backstory is that I really wanted a nice reversible travel jacket in nice AC organic cotton for an upcoming trip to Japan. (This is after ordering an expensive travel hoodie from a Fancy Outdoor Company and having the thing pill on me after 2 washes. Argh, POLYESTER.)

I put wrong sides together and treated each piece as one, flat-felled the seams and added interior and exterior pocks. I went with a straight size large and shortened the sleeves a bit. They could still stand to be shortened a bit more, but I'll probably roll them up most of the time anyway. I used a Cretan stitch for the binding.

My stitching isn't perfect, but I'm going to wear it anyway—it's SO comfortable. I'll bring a backup RTW piece just in case.

Here I am wearing it with my AC fitted dress from last year:


Finished:



In progress:



And yes, it's boring—I know that—but I wanted something laundry machines would be less likely to chew up. I kept having to fight the urge to embellish it somehow. "Maybe just the pocke--" "No!" Someday I'll make a funky one.

In the meantime, I'm stalking Handmade by Carolyn's Japan shopping guides (I am bound and determined to find that needle shop!) and obsessing over the Issey Miyake rouketsu video, which I stumbled across on the Issey Miyake men's site. We signed up for a rouketsu dyeing class in Kyoto after watching it. I can't wait.

Till later!


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