Chanel-ish & Done

We had a gorgeous weekend. The sun shone and the weather was just right - not too hot and not too cold. Some of those beautiful, extended days of summer. Hopefully, the warmth stretches into this week. It's perfect walking weather.

Our daughter made it here safely and is returning home this morning. The two of us went for breakfast Saturday and yesterday, she had breakfast with her Dad. Then we went to church, had lunch, did some family things, and watched a Marley & Me. It was wonderful to see her again.

While Jessica was out visiting friends, I worked on my jacket. It's finished. YES YES! Here's a detail image of the front. As you can see, it's very simple. I think that works well.




And here's the full image with my "uniform" of black jeans and a t-shirt. I'm pleased with how the jacket fits smoothly through the shoulders, upper chest, and bust. I'll sew something next that goes with - either a t-shirt, blouse, or skirt - and is a bit more dressy.

I even like the back! That's usually where I have to do a lot of fitting work. However, those wrinkles under my butt are driving me crazy and these are my best fitting jeans. From the pant fitting class I took with Palmer/Pletsch last year, I know that the crotch curve needs to be scooped a little lower for my aging behind. Can't be done on these purchased jeans which is one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to the jean making course next April. A digital camera is one of the best design tools ever but sometimes I think it might be better if I was still ignorant of what was going on behind me - LOL.




This jacket is one of the few fashion sewing projects I've done in the past twenty years and one of the more labour intensive ones. Even so, it's not nearly as much work as a traditional Chanel jacket. Joining the Chanel Jacket Sew A Long seemed like a fun way to get back into fashion sewing however, when I realized how much hand work was in Chanel's jackets, I knew I'd be doing an inspired by jacket as opposed to a traditional one. Now that I was finally sewing fashions again, I didn't want to spend all my time on one project.

Reading about her, I was intrigued with Chanel's attitude toward life. While I'm quite sure it was not always easy, she lived outside of the box, always a little ahead of and a little different from the women of her time. Her clothing designs developed from menswear and incorporated jersey, which was a knit fabric used exclusively until then for underwear.

Some of her success just happened and some was due to the entrepreneurial skills that she developed as and when given the opportunity and built on over her life time. The iconic jacket that many of us associate with Chanel is only one of the numerous designs attributed to her. I was surprised by how many of the styles that I think are fun - like flowing flapper dresses - were also designed by Chanel. She had a knack for realizing what women were tired of and ready to move on from and the freedoms they were longing for in both fashions and attitudes. Clothing is such an amazing way of expressing our creativity and self. She helped women to do that.

The things that are Chanel-ish about my jacket are the top layer of knit fabric, the quilted lining, no facings, the fitted shoulders and design lines, the over-all simplicity that is somewhat deceptive of the amount of work involved, and the "trim" of the binding. It's a very easy to wear, lightweight, comfortable jacket that still looks structured and fitted. I really enjoyed making it.

This weekend, I also worked on my socks. I figured out how to knit the gusset stitches and increase and then how to turn the heel and decrease back to the original number of stitches. I'm knitting two socks on two circular needles from the toe up. Once I had turned the heel, I was able to try them on and realized that they should have been slightly longer - LOL, of course - so I unravelled back to before the gusset and am re-knitting that section. I'm just about to turn the heels again as there's not a lot of stitches so it hasn't taken too long. I want to get them to an easy knitting stage before tomorrow's groups. I'll work on that today and pick my next pattern and maybe get started in-between washing sheets, cleaning up, and going for a walk.

Have a great day, talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - finishing the jacket, solving the heel problem, seeing Jessica