This jacket was made from the Fearless Cardigan Jacket, a pattern from Material Things, designed by Cecelia Podolak. I began making this jacket in early October, 2006 and finally finished it in December, two months later. My sewing is not as quick as it used to be, work gets in the way!

I had been wanting to make a jacket like one in an old Burda WOF magazine, and actually traced off the Burda pattern, then realized that the jacket would be huge. The magazine was from 1993 and the styles were much looser with larger shoulders and oversized styling back then. I thought of going down two sizes, but when I measured the shoulder seam and saw that it was 7”, I put the pattern away. It would be just way too much work to downsize this and have it look good. Why not start with a more modern pattern that had the same styling and add the Burda things that I liked to it?

This pattern is a cardigan style jacket or blazer, but with subtle shaping. The front had a princess seam as did the back, plus a center back seam which I like for shaping and for adding detail to an otherwise blank fabric. Also the Burda pattern had a side panel rather than side seams, so that there is a pattern piece which extends around to front and back and is joined in a princess seam. I had a blazer like this years ago and really liked the styling of that kind of seaming. It seemed to fit really well also. This is a feature that you find more often in men's jackets than in women's.

I looked at several patterns, considered the jacket from Petite Plus but dismissed it because it had side seams and the princess seam was quite pronounced. I didn’t want that curvy shaping over the bustline, but a more gentle boxy shaping. Just like a man’s suit jacket actually. Then I looked at Cecelia’s jacket and realized it had all the features I wanted. I would just have to replace her patch pockets with welt pockets, but that is no problem.

So, I decided to give this pattern a go. I read through her directions, which are extensive – they are actually a small book. She advised using the size that corresponded to your actual full bust size, rather than the common advice of using your high bust to determine the size. This put me into size 18, but who is going to know what size my jacket is anyway? When you sew for yourself, you never have to put a label inside with the size written on it. If it fits, that’s all that matters. I knew I would have length alterations and some shoulder alterations to make, but I was equipped with the information I learned from Sandra Betzina this summer and I had Sandra’s Fast Fit book to help me.

1. shorten front and back and side panel pieces 2”, 1” at each line. Also shorten ¼” across the armscye because short women are shorter here and the armhole will be too big otherwise. This also means that you have to shorten the sleeve cap ¼” to correspond.

2. shorten the sleeve 1” at the line, plus the ¼” in the cap

3. shorten the shoulder seam by ¾” as per Sandra’s instructions. This means overlaying paper on the pattern, tracing off the original armhole, then mark a point on the seam ¾” in from shoulder, lay the overlay on this matching up the edge of the shoulder to the new point and bringing the side seams together. This brings the underarm up a bit, but the armhole remains the same size.

Alterations to the front of the jacket

These were all the alterations I did on the original muslin. I then made up the muslin and tried it on. At first I thought it was pretty good, the center fronts met and the jacket hung nice and straight. The length looked good, as I was planning on a 2” hem. The sleeves were a tad long, but only ½”.

Then I began to look closer - yikes! the whole front shoulder area look humongous. Then I saw that the jacket really looked as if I was wearing someone else’s jacket and it was way too big. Not a look I want. I remembered Sandra’s advice about how some women, as they age, get a narrower upper chest and the fabric hangs in folds there. You just don’t have the flesh to hold it up anymore. Combined with a narrow shoulder, I could see the two problems added up to bad fit on me.

So I took the muslin off, pinned out a ½” fold down the center of the shoulder to above the bust area, then tried it on again. Wow, there was a huge difference. The back remained the same, it fit well, but that front was just too big and had to be changed. I also noticed that the shoulder seam was not lying in the center of my shoulder but that it angled forward at the neck. Sandra had pointed this out to me as well, and I remember that years ago, in the couture sewing class I took in Ottawa, the same thing had been said but I didn’t know then how to correct it. It confused me which seam had to be added to and which had to be taken away from. But now it was clear. I needed to add about 3/8” to the front seam at the neck and redraw the line back to the shoulder point. Then the same amount had to be taken away from the back shoulder seam to make them work together.

Okay, back to the drafting board. I dug out Sandra’s book and made the alteration on the front chest area. Sandra says that this makes the front armhole larger, which I could see, and that you have to increase the seam of the sleeve to match it. I.e. extend the front cap out the amount that you removed from the chest. This I did and then Sandra said that this could cause a twist in the sleeve, so you have to add some to the sleeve all the way down to the wrist, and remove that from the under sleeve so that they are balanced. Otherwise, the sleeve seams will not be in the right place and your sleeve will twist.

I made the changes to the pattern and undid my muslin, just doing one front and one sleeve. I left the other side the same. Second try on: the shoulder seam was now fine, in the right place. So this was a success. But the fabric in the front of the armhole was poofing out. Right away, I could see that I could simply sew the princess seam deeper as I approached the armhole and remove this excess. So I took the muslin off and pinned the seam deeper, tried it on and it looked good. When I took the muslin off to see how much I needed to remove from those seams, I was surprised to see that it was exactly what had been added to the armhole by the narrow chest alteration. So I simply removed the extra on that seam, removed the same from the front seam on the side panel. Then I removed the extra that had been added to the sleeve, since this was no longer needed. So the sleeve didn't have to be changed at all.

After all of these changes, I then went through all the pattern pieces to correct any others that were affected. Of course, all the lining pieces had to be changed the same way, and the front and back neck facings had to have their shoulder seams changed.

Close up of alteration to the front shoulder area
- 1" removed from the shoulder line; this brings the armhole in closer to the body

Another alteration I made was to lower the back neck seam as this seam always comes up too high on me and scooping it out is the simplest way to handle it. Any other alteration would affect the shoulders; it is easier to just cut the back neck seam lower and taper it back to the shoulders. The facing was changed to match. The total scooped out was about 3/8”.

So I think I am now ready to cut this out in good fabric. This was quite a lot of work and more than I usually do, but I really wanted to perfect a pattern for this type of jacket as I think it will get made many times in different fabrics.

October 16 -I got up very early and cut out the jacket in the purple wool melton. The Burda jacket was done in a heavy wool with lots of topstitching, so I want to duplicate this.

I meant to add ¼” to the hems to allow more room for topstitching, but trusted myself to remember to add it to each piece. That was stupid, as I just zipped around the bottom of the facing and then had to cut everything shorter to match. Lesson learned - always mark what you are going to do, don’t trust your brain to remember.

Next week, I will post how I made the welt pockets - this is sharing a wonderful method that I learned from Anneke Jans, a tailor and textile educator here in Halifax.

For welt pockets, click here Jacket Pockets
For sleeves and shoulder pads, click here Sleeves and Pads
For lining, click here Lining