B5533 Microfleece jacket…

Long time no see! I’ve been visiting family and  doing a lot of sewing. A couple nice keepers and one miserable failure (future posts).

Here’s a recently sewn jacket, a variation of a favorite pattern from Butterick. It’s done in ‘Taxi Yellow’ microfleece from Fabric Mart, and it kept me warm through 5 cold days in Orlando last week. Nice!

I first made this pattern 4 years, with a lined hood taken from a cape pattern, B5807. It fit perfectly on the View A neckline! It was also fleece, but was a very lightweight and stable variety from JoAnns. My new jacket is mid-weight fleece and has a lot more stretch.

This time, I used View A for the front,

and View B for the back.

So far I haven’t put on the pockets, but I think I will, since I keep reaching for them. Mine have rounded corners at the bottom, pretty cute.

Something else I rounded was the point on the collar. I just didn’t want to struggle with the point and end up  with a rounded collar anyway because of the bulky fabric!

I generally avoid the angst of sewing buttonholes in fleece, so I used four snaps (size 4) for closure – with buttons sewn in place on the outside. Works great.

I just love the back detail and two-piece sleeves.

Sewing notes:

• Size 12.
• To break up the front a bit, I cut it with a yoke.

• I used 3/8″ topstitching throughout.
• There was lots of staystitching and basting during the construction! Although the fleece has no vertical stretch, it has 80% stretch across the width. Had to tame that beast…
• The sleeves on the pattern are short – I added 1″.
• Fusible interfacing doesn’t work on fleece, so I used sewn-in broadcloth interfacing on the collar and front facing.
• I raised the armscye by 1/2″ at the shoulder to compensate for the stretch in the material.
• And I flattened the sleeve head quite a bit to fit the armscye with no gathers.
• For a little Jungle January fun, I faced the back yoke with an animal print. It also serves as a facing for the back neckline.

It’s almost 7 p.m, time for the Australian Tennis Open! Bye for now – Coco