Goodbye to My First Jacket

Hey there! Before I had a blog, I made stuff. I made lots of stuff and mostly it was rubbish, but I often wore everything I made, not knowing it was rubbish! Sewing gave me oodles of self confidence, and my own unique wardrobe, and I did not care what trouble I created on the sewing machine, I finished as many things as I could and wore with pride.

But, there comes a time to say adios to old sewing wearable friends, and here's the first proper jacket I made and wore a LOT in the early 2000s. BEFORE I BLOGGED THIS BLOG! I was still blogging about hypertext and uni shizz back then, and didn't even realise I could write about my life and my love of sewing!? WTF!

This jacket was my first 'real' fabric purchase from a normal shop... and I used a 1970s pattern that I think I still have somewhere.

Some positives:

I made button holes with an old Janome machine that didn't make button holes automatically (and hated making them)

It's a very flattering cut for a short bad ass like me, so I'll have to make a princess seamed flippy outy hem again for myself.

I made lining throughout (but topstitched lots of it, because I didn't know how to hand sew - I KNOW) AND lining in the pockets

Some negatives:

It was always too big, but I didn't know how to resize the pattern

The collar:

Both lapels are just hilarious, but I used to fold them up and pin them shut with a badge or scarf and you couldn't really tell how fucked out they were... HILARIOUS and goofy looking!

So, we're having a big clear out (spring cleaning maybe) as we have new wardrobes coming and frankly, I love this coat just because I made it a while back and it's just not good enough to keep. I have other things I made 'back in the day' as special momentos, but really... if they're not well made I'm not going to hang on to them. I'm not as nostalgic about my clothes as I used to be. I've got another bit of clothing to show you soon too... coming soon.

Even though I was so proud of myself to make this back then, I'm even prouder to show you because look how far I've come in my sewing? I've made 100 Outfits, Sewn Weekly for a year and really stepped up. There's heaps more challenges ahead for me, but I'm blogging this coat to remember where I've come from in my sewing.

What do you do with handmade things that aren't that well made to hold on to? Do you keep them all? I'm shipping this off to charity with a load of other stuff!

xoxo