The Plaid Suit

I am so happy! I did it! The suit is finished, and I had perfect buttons in my stash already and... boy am I glad this is over, lol. And oh it will be some time until I make something this complicated again...

The facts:

 

Fabric: Thrifted soft tweed from stash, about 10$, remnants of cotton/linen from stash, less than 1$
Pattern: Classic Chanel style jacket with pockets from German pattern book Mode Klassiker
Year: 1992
Notions: Ten small anchor buttons, thrifted, less than 1$, shoulder pads from clearance, about 2$
Time to complete: 14 hours
First worn: September 2011
Wear again? Definitely 

Total Cost: About 13$

 

Yes, it needs ironing... I don't have an iron at the moment so all the folds and hems are a bit more fluffy than they should. Oh well.


Here are some where you can see the skirt a bit better. I used almost every little scrap of the plaid fabric, luckily, it was just enough for the waistband and the bit at the bottom. I think one good thing about having it like this is that the placement of the darker fabric makes it very slimming! The white shirt is an old rtw, I have no idea when or where I bought it (but most likely it was second hand...).


A few details, the lining, the bias cut pockets, the facing, the lovely brassy buttons with little anchors on them (I just lovelovelove them!!), and the green lining in the waistband which was also just a small scrap! Nothing gets wasted around here. :D



Now for some construction pictures...


You know you're in for a rough one when the pattern paper looks like the one above... The past weekend I remembered that I have this book called Mode Klassiker, it's a pattern book specialized on jackets, skirts and trousers... and it's written in German (bugger!!). The pictures are very clear anyway so following instructions work fairly well despite me knowing only a very few words in German. I chose to make a classic  Chanel style jacket and a very simple skirt. The book is from 1992, but I think jackets like this one are timeless.

As usual, I had the fabric in stash, so I did not have enough to make the whole skirt and jacket of just one fabric. Luckily, I had a little bit of left over heavy cotton/linen (mix? don't remember what the fabric was..., since I bought it a couple of years back, when making a medieval style dress!) in dark blue/purple, just enough to make facings and the skirt!


And here's some more: one left sleeve, and one right sleeve, finally. Facing, folding and putting in the lining. I am never ever doing that again with that super stiff lining, it took forever to hand sew, and I only did the sleeve endings and the bottom hem by hand. Sigh.