FINISHED: Minoru Jacket!!

A rare photo of me outside! Autumn seemed to creep up on me, and now look at all those leaves!

Finally, some Minoru photos!

It always seems to be that when I get my sewing mojo back, obstacles are constantly thrown in the way of my sewing/blogging, and then by the time I’ve finally gotten around to settling myself down in my sewing room, I’m either exhausted (definitely not the right time to start a new project) or just plain not-in-the-mood! But the past couple of weeks have been seriously manic. It was Mr Cuckoo’s thirtieth birthday, which basically took up two weekends straight, as we had two different celebrations over two consecutive weekends (my poor liver!) I’m also in the middle of a lot of medical investigations (including some pretty invasive tests this week!) which are making me feel a bit sorry for myself and FINALLY, I had some presents sewing to do for people (not including Mr Cuckoo… he’ll have to wait I’m afraid!)

I’ve been meaning to take photos of my Minoru jacket for weeks now, but whenever there has been a chance, the weather has been MISERABLE. So when the weather was finally predicted to be good this weekend, and as we actually had a weekend at home, I begged Mr Cuckoo to take some photographs of me in the jacket! Unfortunately, since we rarely have an uninterrupted weekend at home, we inevitably try to fit a bazillion-and-one things in, so these photos were taken very quickly on Saturday morning and you can definitely tell! Although, I’m not criticising Mr Cuckoo’s photography skills! I’m just notoriously difficult to photograph, since I HATE IT so much.

Anyway – the jacket! I am SO PROUD of it! It’s definitely flawed… I cocked up in so many places, and I have no doubt that other sewists would easily be able to pick it apart. But I honestly don’t care! I love this jacket. Mr Cuckoo, who isn’t really known for his gushing praise of my efforts (he praises! he does! but he tends towards the understated ‘very nice’) told me that he thought it looked like it was shop-bought, which is high praise indeed! (just don’t look inside it or too closely okay Mr Cuckoo? Thanks!) 

Honestly, this jacket has been hanging around, staring at me mournfully for most of the year. Originally, I was participating in the sew-along… but I think I must have cocked up somewhere and then after the inevitable hissy fit, I hung it up and then ignored it until I came back from Sri Lanka. Then I realised that it was autumn, and a warm hooded jacket would be just what I needed for the depressing mizzel-y autumn weather in the UK. After having a look at the rest of Tasia’s sew-along posts, I realised that I was really close to finishing it, and decided to get it done asap. After ripping out the wonky stitching at the waistband (it’s all the lining’s fault!) it took me no time at all to finish! But, in my heady excitement at the prospect of FINISHING ANOTHER PROJECT(!!!) I forgot that I’d painstakingly taken the time to add in pockets at the side seam, and after hemming the jacket (with two rows of stitching no less!!) I realised that I had sewn right through the pockets, and could hardly get my hands into the twisted remnants of the pocket bags. Sigh. 

The outer is a kind of tweedy wool (I’m terrible with fabric terms! It’s like an alternating black and white wool, so it looks grey..) that I bought from the market for about £6 a metre. I was a little suspicious that it was 100% wool, so I did a burn test. If it isn’t 100%, it’s definitely high up there. Mr Cuckoo moaned at me about the terrible smell for ages. The lining is made from this amazing sari I found in a charity shop in town. I think it cost me about £4, and it was 45″ wide and there was about 4 metres of the stuff! Bargain! Until I realised that it was a DEVIL to cut, and ended up having to recut pretty much every lining piece. I swore so much Mr Cuckoo went and hid in the living room. 

Me, flashing that evil sari material. But look at that pretty aqua colour.. it was worth it!

I did attempt to cut all the lining pieces to make the most of the wonderful border pattern of black with pink lines and a kind of floral scrollwork, but I was clearly trying to be too clever, and then at the end realised that the hem of the jacket would come up and cover it… Oh well!

So there we have it! It may have taken months and months, and it certainly isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s something that I’m really proud of and that helps keep me warm and dry with a smile on my face!

After taking these photos, we headed to a vintage fair being held in our neighbourhood and then walked into the city and shopped for fabric and notions (for me) and brew stuff (for Mr Cuckoo) and then had coffee and cake at my favourite coffee roasting place! Sometimes it’s so nice to just have a quiet Saturday!