I've been wanting to move my blog away from Blogspot for a while but could never be bothered to actually do it. This week was the tipping point though, and I've now fully migrated over to https://patsypoomakes.wordpress.com/ . The blogspot address will remain here but all new posts will only appear at https://patsypoomakes.wordpress.com/ . There are lots of reasons for the move but my biggest one is how hard Blogger has made it for people to subscribe to receive new posts via email. It's such a basic requirement but apparently, they think it's too much to offer. I'm basing this purely on how I myself prefer to consume this stuff. I can't be arsed with feed readers anymore and emails are easy and convenient. When I receive one, if I fancy reading it, I will click through to it and, if not, I'll just delete it. Another reason is the spat between Google (owners of Blogger) and Instagram/Facebook/Meta. I don't even know if this is still the case anymore
As soon as the Pona Jacket pattern was released last year, I bought it. I'd never made any kind of outerwear and this one seemed like the perfect one to ease me in before I actually get the nerve to make a coat. And I was right!
The jacket is super simple and easy to sew. Very quick as well, as there are no closures of any kind! 🙌 There are 2 lengths: a cropped version, which is the one I made, and a longer one that hits around the hips. I'd like to make that one in a warm wool fabric.
My fabric is a terracotta drill I bought from Fabworks a few weeks ago, when I went there with Mel. I can't find it listed on their website though. It's a gorgeous and structured fabric. It has a wonderfully soft right side, maybe it's sandwashed or something. It's very velvety to the touch. Uh-mayzing! I have a fair bit left as well, but more on that later.
The jacket is far from perfect but I am ecstatic about it. After all, I MADE A SODDING JACKET!!! It's a super simple one but it's a jacket nonetheless.
The fit is supposed to be quite loose. I wasn't sure that sort of fit would work with this fabric as it is quite stiff so I opted to go down in size. My actual bust measurement would put me in a size 6. I made a size 2 and it's exactly how I wanted it to look. We're going to Florida soon and I wanted something to throw on when we're indoors because American air conditioning is fierce! Therefore, I don't really need to fit a jumper or anything else underneath. This is going to work as a summer jacket for me.
I didn't make any significant changes to it. But one thing I did differently was the pockets. I have a couple of cropped jackets which have pocket openings at the top, like the original Pona. I don't like that. I feel like I'm pretending to be a rabbit or something if I put my hands in those kinds of pockets. so I slashed across these to make them more hand friendly. My slash goes from 2 inches in from the top corner to 3 inches up from the opposite bottom corner.
The placement is the same, since the pattern marks the bottom line for the pocket, rather than the top. Also, I do see how wobbly my pocket is in comparison to my hem but I hadn't until I took these pictures, so it can't be that noticeable.
Another change was my seam finish. I went all fancy and did a Hong Kong finish on all of them. I'm well pleased with them and it looks so good! One disadvantage of it though is the underarm seam. Since these are dropped shoulders, the underarm seam is curved. With finer fabrics it probably wouldn't have been an issue but because this one is on the heavy side, I have some weird pulling going on there. That's because you should clip into that curve for it to sit correctly but I have no idea how I should go about it if my seams are bound.
To be honest, it doesn't affect me while I'm wearing it. It just annoys me when I look at it. 🤷♀️
One thing worth mentioning is how much fabric I had leftover. I bought EXACTLY the amount specified by the pattern but ended up with around 1.25m left. I hate it when that happens and I love it when that happens. 🤣 This time, I loved it more than I hated it because I'm working on some Dawn jeans with what was left. Yes, I got a pair of jeans cut out of 1.25m of fabric. Hallellujah! 🙌
Overall, I'm counting this as a great success. I would highly recommend this pattern and I would like to have another go at the longer version for winter.