Sunday 3 May 2015

A bunch of Bombers - Mccalls 7100

Hello lovely people of the internet sewing world.

Are you taking part in "Me Made May 15"? I am doing it for the first time this year, and am loving seeing all the wonderful 'me made' items on instagram each day.

If you haven't heard about it before, check out Zoe blog. She started the whole thing a few years back. I have decided to try and wear at least one me made item a day.

One of the reason I haven't done MMMay before is that May is a coldish month for us here in Victoria, and a lot of my me made clothing is for summer.

Enter McCall's 7100, the perfect Autumnal jacket to help fill the wintry gaps in my me made wardrobe!

I loved this pattern from the moment a saw it on the McCall's website. Sadly It didn't hit my local Spotlight store for another few months.

By the time I got my grubby little hands on it, I had the fabric and ribbing lined up for two versions, which I banged out in less than a week!

The first was a green pre quilted cotton that I picked up from and op-shop, but I think it was originally from Spotlight.


I made a Medium without any alterations.



My love then turned in to an obsession; the fit and the style of the jacket was perfect, so I decided it deserved to be lined. The pattern does not include a lining, but it wasn't to hard to work out. I cut the front, sleeves and back pieces out of the lining fabric, adding a 2 inch vent in the centre back for movement.  I made it up the same as the shell, machine sewed it on at the neck and base band then hand stitched the sleeves to the cuff and the front opening in behind the facing.



This jacket is pretty straight forward to construct, but the instructions are a little bit tricky to follow. It looks to me like they have forgotten to colour them in. They have the key indicating what the right side of the fabric and the wrong side of the fabric look like, but the pictures don't seem to use it.



 I also couldn't work out the method for inserting the pocket lining, in the end I just made it up and I am happy with the results.

Version two I made out of this amazing black neoprene from Darn Cheap Fabrics, in Melbourne. It has a pattern cut in to it which is not very clear in the photos so you will have to take my word on that.



This version of the jacket is probably the weakest, the stretch of the fabric made the neckline go wobbly even though I stayed stitched it, it also doesn't sit as nicely as the others. I will still wear it for sure but I will go with stiffer/thicker fabrics in the feature.



For my third and final - for now - I lengthened the pattern by 9 inches to make it in to a coat. I decided to omit the bottom band and just hem it.



I lined this one too, and I put bias binding on the edge of the front facing to avoid a bulky hem.

 






This is my favourite version and I can see myself wearing it a lot this winter. yay.

 

8 comments:

  1. Great looking jackets. I think I bought this pattern and will now take a second look at it!! Thanks for writing it up.

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    1. Thanks Mary, I hope yours turn out great!

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  2. Green is not my thing, but I love the green jacket!!! Imagining it in purples and reds

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    1. you should definitely give this pattern a try! its not to scary and it looks good in every colour I have seen it in!

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    2. you should definitely give this pattern a try! its not to scary and it looks good in every colour I have seen it in!

      Delete