 |
| Knit muslin of Vogue 8136 |
Princess seams make me feel like a queen. Yes, it's true. Once I realized that I had some curves on my rectangular body, then I discovered the flattering appeal of princess seams. This will explain my ongoing fascination with jackets that have plenty of seaming opportunities. Last summer I pulled my Vogue 8136 muslin of this jacket and lo and behold, it has all the princess seams a girl could want.
Vogue 8136 was one of the early patterns produced by Vogue under Sandra Betzina's
Today's Fit brand. Despite being exactly the market for her patterns (middle aged, thicker and fluffier than in my youth) I have had little success with these patterns. When I had made the muslin for this pattern, I followed the short version A with the little pleats around the high hip...WTH? It looked awful on me, little pleats fluttering at my widest spot. So I tucked it into that "muslin closet space" and ignored it for a number of years. Last summer I pulled it out for the final decision and guess what, I love this pattern!! As a matter of fact, I was just about ready to order a very similar pattern from Canada's
Trudy Jansen designs. I wanted a jacket that I could make in double knit, boiled wool or stable fleece.
I was hoping that this red knit would be a wearable muslin but there are too many problems with this version. First of all, although I love the color, the knit is a little flimsier than I would have liked. In retrospect, I should have stabilized all of it with knit interfacing, not just the facings. Secondly, for the very first time I had problems with my Snapsetter and these snaps are broken and just wrong. Lastly, it still needed some size tweaking.
All those things said, why do I like it so much? Love the shoulder and armscye front seams (although the side armscye is quite oversized and needed almost 1/2 taken in from size C) Love the back seams with lovely gentle curves. Wonderful collar, terrific easy method for getting a shawl collar without those finicky square corners. Also love the collar dart underneath the collar to make it sit closer to the body at the narrow upper chest area.
Why didn't more people make this one up? Well, I do think the pattern drawing makes this look like a ring leader's outfit. I also think those tummy pleats were a terrible design decision.
Vogue 8136, JAM #3 in progress:
That's very pretty. Lots of seams equals slimming! Love that red, too!
ReplyDeleteOh, I do like the look of that jacket! The collar is lovely. I do hope that you manage to rectify all your fit issues to get a jacket that you will really enjoy wearing.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed this is knit fabric, it looks great. The final jacket would be better in a heavier/stiffer fabric but this is quite good too and has a nice casual look. Love it, thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteI have this pattern, but I have not made it. I agree with you on the longer version of the jacket. It always looked "costumey" to me. But based on your red knit short version, I am tempted to pull this pattern out and relook at it. I wonder if the front pleats could be eliminated by just sewing the princess seam lines to the hem?
ReplyDeleteI do like the seaming on that, but you are right...that pattern photo does look like a ringleader! I find that a lot of times I pass over patterns because the pattern photos just aren't well done...then I see someone make it up and I have to go buy it!
ReplyDelete