Burda 6334 ~ Peplum Jacket

Is this a cardigan or a jacket? I’m leaning towards jacket …

In the winter I picked up a piece of double knit faux quilted denimish fabric from Fabric Mart Fabrics. There’s really no great way to describe it except to say that it looks like denim on the right side, but it’s got all over stretch.

The initial thought was to make a vest however I saw Burda 6334 and thought this would be cute as a bomber jacket, and then decided that I liked the peplum version better.  The pattern doesn’t even use 2-yards of fabric!

The pattern goes to a size 18, and that’s a smidge small for me however with Princess seams there are plenty of opportunities to cheat seam allowances, which is exactly what I did. I cut the seam allowances a bit larger, then stitched at about 3/8″. That made up the 2 inches needed for my uncooperative waist. That was the only adjustment needed. Man, I love knits.

As with all Burda patterns, the instructions are a bit sparse. This pattern wasn’t confusing, but for whatever reason, Burda’s technical writers tend to abbreviate too much. Their instructions would also be improved if the typesetter added some space between points or maybe used the occasional bullet point it would be easier to follow along. And my eyes are just fine, thank you 😉

 

I wound up using an 18″ separating zipper rather than the 20″ called for. Is it actually possible to find a 20″ zipper in a store?

 

This fabric is a bit like a scuba. It’s denim on the exterior and white on the interior, so I had to make a conscious decision about the interior finish. My serger is in the shop for its first-ever tune-up so that left me with the regular machine and cover stitch. For a moment I considered Hong Kong seam finishes and then dismissed that thought when it became apparent that the bulk of bias binding would be visible on the finished garment. The cover stitch wound up serving a dual purpose – finishing the seam allowances, and providing some dimension to the exterior.

 

Yes, I screwed up a bunch of things

 

My first difficulty was the zipper. The facing was interfaced so it had structure and didn’t move, however that didn’t stop the bodice from moving.  That led to about 40 minutes of unpicking the zipper seam on one side.

Then I was a dingbat and didn’t mark the sleeves properly which led to backwards sleeves. (Did you watch Series 5 of the Great British Sewing Bee? I now sympathize a lot more with the contestants!) Thinking I would be really smart, I used a lightning stitch on the sleeves (yes, both). Do you want an exercise to build your patience? Try unpicking lightning stitches in a knit. Thank goodness there was a good golf game on TV.

Once I got through that mess the project was easy to finish. Actually, this is a simple pattern that any sewist could put together.

There are a few very small pulls from unpicking stitches and the upper edge of one side of the zipper curls out where the fabric was slightly stretched when I inserted the zipper. But all in all, this turned out well! Yes, it’s a bit more formfitting than I wanted, and I’ll never be able to pick up one of the cats when I’m wearing it (lest little claws make a mess).

I will make this pattern again, perhaps in a ponte or in a slightly more stable knit.