Minoru and Me

 After much anticipation and excitement, I got my mittens on a copy of the New Sewaholic pattern; the Minoru jacket! As soon as I heard about the pre-sale I purchased myself a copy and started dreaming up what it was going to look like. It seemed that every day a pattern tester's version of the minoru jacket was propping up on blogs looking lovely in cottons and wools, bright colours and neutrals. Seeing the chocolate box of minoru variations, my healthy excitement about the new pattern turned into obsessive stake outs by the post office, waiting for my copy of the pattern to arrive. The heart wants what the heart wants!

Finally it arrived! On the Wednesday afternoon the day before U.S. Thanksgiving, and boy did I give thanks! I'm one of a lucky few Australian's who get's American public holidays, so guess what I did all day Thanks giving, I sewed me a jacket!

As suspected, the instructions were easy to follow and flowed in a logical order. There was lots of new things for me with this pattern to get excited about. Things I hadn't tried before such as separating zips! From now on all my clothes will have separating zippers! (Disclaimer - this is said in the excitement of the moment and is very unlikely and impractical).

Elastic cuffs and an elastic waist! I've also never used elastic with sewing before and I love how the elastic band around the waist moves with you and gives you shape! Genius!

I used a gorgeous blue cotton poplin from Tessuti Fabrics for the shell of the jacket, and lined it with this awesome, and very dangerous looking skull and cross bones cotton fabric which I also purchased from Tessuti Fabrics Isn't it awesome!?!! It has shiny gold stuff in it! Some how glitter and skulls just work!

The talented Tasia from Sewaholic has thought of everything with this pattern, including a loop at the neck of jacket so you can hang it up, and pockets which you can see in the above photo. The pattern calls for an optional piece of velcro for fastening, but I used a cute little button instead that I found in my stash.

I used some chunky black zippers with gold teeth and I love how it looks with the blue of the coat and the gold lining.

My favourite part about this pattern has to be the sneaky hood! I call it sneaky, because it has a little zipper pouch in the neck where it can hide away as if there is no hood attached to neck! Amazing! If you're not in the mood for a hood, you just fold it up, tuck it in and zip! Magic!

Here's some pictures with the hood out:

And then ... tucked in ...

What hood I hear you say? Exactly! In fact, the folded up hood helps keep the collar nice and straight and firm. And how good does the zipper look! (Awesome up the nose shot too)

The adjustments that I made to this jacket were minimal. In fact, I didn't even make a muslin first! Shocking I know! I referred to the measurements on the back of the pattern and then decided to make a size smaller than recommended. I'm glad I did too. My jacket is made from cotton so it's not a winter jacket, I won't be wearing lots of layers underneath so I didn't need to give myself extra room. In fact it's Summer now in Melbourne, Australia. But Melbourne being famous for four seasons in one day, this jacket will be perfect for those cooler moments during this season.

I am short in the torso, and I'd read in some of Tasia's blog posts that she is a bit longer in the torso, so I decided I would shorten the bodice and arms by two centimetres and it was bang on!

I also lined the hood, which wasn't called for in the pattern, but with the lining this awesome how could I resist!

And that was it for adjustments! One of the best things about this jacket is other peoples response to finding out that I made it. Most people these days assume that I've made everything that I wear (which I guess it actually pretty accurate) but people were genuinely shocked that I put this thing together my self!  That's an indication of a great pattern; something that makes the garment look like it is complicated and couldn't possibly be made by anyone short of a genius, but is actually a well drafted pattern with clear and straight forward directions that yield a great results.

I have to say just one more thing that I love about this pattern and it's the shape. I have a full bust, but I'm more of a pear than an hour glass as my hips are always a billion (slight exaggeration) sizes bigger than my waist and shoulders. There was no size grading up or down for me on the bottom half, it just fit! Sigh of happiness.

I love my new jacket and I'm looking forward to the next addition of Sewaholic patterns!