Paint Me a Minoru: The Reveal

This winter I’m sewing along with Tasia at Sewaholic.net. A bunch of other talented seamsters and I are all making her Minoru jacket pattern, and this post marks its completion.

If you read all of the fine print last week, you might have noticed that I finished my Minoru jacket last week in time to count as a completed February SWAP item (my sixth item of eleven – over half way there!).  I was sewing into the wee hours of the night on leap day to get one last item into the completed list for February, but then I couldn’t show it off because I wanted to save it for this week’s Sew Weekly theme of “Art.”  And, my efforts and patience paid off because my jacket was featured yesterday!

I love, love, love that Mena, the lovely woman who runs the Sew Weekly blog (and lives in San Francisco to boot!), opened the challenges and featured spots to all. I get to participate as often as I can without the pressure of producing something every week but with more incentive than I had last year just posting to the community forum.

Anyway, back to the jacket. I’m not even sure how to put into words how much I like this jacket. It’s long and slim and covered in paint. It has a hood and side-seam pockets perfect for my hands and inside pockets perfect for little secrets.

The coat is fully lined, except for inside the collar. I’ve yet to decide whether I’ll be bothered by that or not. So far, I haven’t been. But, so far I haven’t really had to use the hood.

Though Tasia didn’t call for it, I interfaced both the front and the back of the collar pieces. I wanted to give them a bit of support because I modified the pattern a bit here and was worried that the collar would be crazy-all-over-the-place without interfacing. How did I modify the pattern, you ask? I left out the zipper in the collar and created an envelope-style pocket out of the collar instead. Why? It’s really all about the zippers. I couldn’t find the right length separating zipper at my local fabric store. You guys gave me great advice to buy online, but since I didn’t think I had enough fabric for the hood, I didn’t buy a second coordinating zipper for the collar. When I cut my fabric and realized I would be able to include the hood, I came up with the envelope-style collar as a solution. It closes with a hook and eye at the center back. Though I imagine a zippered collar would be the tidier of the options, I like that the seam almost disappears from afar.

What else to say about the jacket? The narrow sleeves and elastic waist keep the jacket trim and flattering. The elastic also gathers the stripes in a pleasing way. I practiced my stripe matching skills again and did my best to keep the stripes going around from front placket through side seams and sleeves. Thankfully the loose alignment of the painted stripes means that close enough looks pretty good.

I’ve worn the jacket out twice now, and both times I’ve gotten compliments.  I think there’s just something about painted fabrics that looks unique and grabs one’s attention.  I have my eye on another painted fabric, but I don’t yet have the right project in mind for it.  It’s all for the best though since I really have to keep focused if I want any chance of completing my SWAP.  And my Craftsy classes.  And my gifts for my mom.  And…