Drafting a Suit Jacket

In December I finished a project that was super exciting to me. I took a pattern drafting class because improving and increasing my skills is something that has always been important to me. If you’re curious, the class was Patternmaking 101 with Tricia Camacho. so I just wanted to take you through the process of making this jacket.

Let’s begin with the inspiration photo.

This was my inspiration. I loved the double dart and the wide collar as well as the double breasted design. But I wanted it to end at my waist.

I wanted to begin with the darts. I did them a bit differently than the inspiration photo because I liked the idea of them meeting at the bottom so I took a dart from my sloper and played around with it a bit then I just sewed the darts on a scrap piece of fabric to see if it would give the shape I wanted. When i felt good about that I drafted my pattern piece and made a muslin to check fit and design. So far so good.

Next came a bit of a hard part – the collar. I had never drafted a collar before and I was a bit worried about it. Tricia gave a lot of good instruction and I had my Helen Joseph Armstrong book to help too.

So I drafted the pattern piece and added it to my muslin. You can see that the top collar extends beyond the lapel and I didn’t love that. The next photo is the drawing of how I wanted it to look. So I altered the pattern pieces and tried again.

I liked it. it looked like a retro style jacket. maybe from the 1800s which is when the inspiration jacket was from so I went with it. I know that I want to try another jacket style and will play with collars again to get a different shape.

Sleeves are a whole other class so i took a sleeve from a jacket pattern i already had and played with it a little to make it fit in this jacket. I wanted pleats at the top and that’s what I got. I was very happy with the result so it was time to get to work on the wearable jacket!

Choosing buttons is definitely a process…

I made a matching skirt and she is done! I am really happy with the results and I’ve worn it several times already.

Let me know what you think!

Now I want to tell you something else. I am planning on going through my closet because it’s getting a bit crowded in there. I am going to offer some of the skirts I don’t wear very often or ones that don’t fit for sale. I will offer these things first to the people who are on my biggest fans list. Are you on that list? You probably should sign up because they get first dibs on everything. Just go here and enter your email address so you can stay in the know too. Plus you will get a code to use for $25 off your first purchase from my webstore.