Lysimaque nenuphar jacket review: a patchwork piece of art

 I saw this pattern and I was so completely in love with the back.  I had an irritating meter of boiled wool and so immediately I thought it would be amazing to use a bunch of colours of boiled wool for this jacket.  I went on a hunt for all the colors.  It took awhile to accumulate, because all the nice ones were in Germany and wouldn't ship to New Zealand.  I finally had them all, and I had the pattern pieces ready to go, and then realised I needed *one more color*.  Ugh.  I ended up moving, with this in a kind of mess as one of those projects I really wanted to do before I moved, but just didn't manage.  

Blue boiled wool was from Miss Maude

White boiled wool was from The Fabric Box 

The other 3 colours were from Mood Fabrics, an order that I justified specifically because of this project.   

I made size 36 for a 84 cm chest, as my chest measurement is about 83 cm but I am happy to overestimate a touch due to my wide back, rather than sizing down, especially for a jacket.

So, other people have mentioned there are two options for the button placket.  Maybe the original, non-pieced pattern has two button placket options.  But the pieced pattern only has one - you have to sew on a separate button facing on both fronts, so you end up with double thickness and seams everywhere.  I would have liked the other option to decrease bulk.  I tried to use a different fabric but it was a catastrophe so I went back to double thickness boiled wool, which at least does respond to a hot damp iron.

I knew going into this that the instructions would be sparse, and they were. They don't provide you much help if you are a beginning sewist and need some hand holding.  I took it slowly and thought hard about management of the insides, since all the seams were visible.  I found that the instructions mirror imaged reality, ie when it said right front, it's actually the side on my left when I'm wearing it.  But they were consistent so it didn't matter.  All the pieces lined up and the order of attaching them made sense.  The pockets are just low enough that I can snake my hands into them.  I did not even consider folding in a seam allowance on the inner collar, since the wool won't ever fray, I just sewed it down as is.  I then added some extra stitching to keep the collar hem from rolling out.  This worked ok, I think I would wear it with the collar kind of up, but it will go down too. 

I got to the end, not sure if I was making something just so cool, or a clown jacket.  And I made the fatal error.  Those two layers of boiled wool would NEVER receive buttonholes from my sewing machine, and while I do have a backup workhorse Bernina, I instead committed to snaps.  I think I'm gonna retire my Prym snap set now.  While the snaps do sometimes work, on any complex fabric they are almost worse than buttons.  I needed to hand sew snaps on.  Hand sewn snaps are GREAT.  I realised my error after I made lots of snap holes and was committed to snaps and then snaps started falling out.  I went down a wormhole of snap repair etc which involved glue and one fake snap where things just got too terrible.  At the end of this, while pleased with the back of the jacket, I don't really want to own it.  A friend has raised her hand for it and I'm kind of relieved to pass it on.  I do like it, but I kind of FEEL like a clown in it, and the snaps have been the nail in that coffin. 

But I still really LOVE the back.  I might come back around to this idea someday, just using the patchwork star or something.

Another Deer & Doe Nenuphar + Balinese vintage handwoven fabric

This is a length of fabric purchased in Bali a few years ago.  I knew immediately that I wanted to do something pretty special with it.  This type of fabric is narrow, woven on hand looms, and the piece I chose is quite old.  The shopowner was loathe to sell it, in fact, and did point out the holes.  It was sold to me as a tube hand sewn together, with indeed a number of holes and worn areas.  The quality of the fabric was obviously much better than some of the newer pieces.  I believe that these weaving skills are being lost as they were village traditions which are not being passed on to new generations.  

The challenges I considered: 

-the holes, obviously

-better not be an item that will be damaged or need to be washed too frequently

-not a lot of yardage 

I chose the Nenuphar pretty early on, but wanted to do a muslin first (which is here).  The fit of the muslin was perfect so I didn't need to make any pattern adjustments.  

The other caveat is that I decided to fully underline it to support the fabric.  AND I wanted the collar in a matching fabric.  I decided that the ruffle at the bottom should also be a matching fabric.  My first attempt to get matching fabrics totally failed and it was another year before I had success, as I kept forgetting to take my scrap with me to match. 

The underlining is lightweight cotton-silk, and the supporting fabric is heavier but also a cotton-silk.  The back ruffle is doubled, though I was meaning for the top layer to be higher, I didn't realise how high the hem would go and I had to hand sew the hem so I wouldn't accidentally also eat the second layer of ruffle. So it's hard to tell there are two!

I also hand sewed the collar down.  I'm thankful to Alabama Chanin for making this into a normal seeming process instead of an exception.  It's also really nice to have the control that hand sewing gives - invisible stitches, plus everything is exactly where you want it! 

I'm really pleased with the final product. The two layers give it a surprising amount of heft.  I couldn't quite pattern match both pockets so I tried to just go with the theme on the second pocket and it's nearly as invisible as the first. For larger holes, I stitched over them together with the underlining for support.  I feel like I achieved my goal at respecting the origins of this amazing fabric, while creating a wearable garment. 

Deer and Doe Nenuphar review

There are pattern companies that just suit each of us, and Deer & Doe is that for me.  It's so rare that I need to make adjustments to their patterns, and their style often really suits me. 

Also, I had a huge idea for my Nenuphar, and I needed to do a muslin to make sure that my vision was realistic.  This has been in the plans for awhile but I needed a second fabric and I kept struggling to make a colour match that suited me. (Has since been found, hooray!)  I finally got too curious to see this pattern put together, so I did a version out of Japanese seersucker for a friend of mine. It's view A with no changes. I made size 36.  In general that is what I wear in D&D though occasionally it's tight across the back. I assumed the ease built in would be enough.  Initially I thought the upright pockets on this would be impractical to put hands in, but they are actually just right.

This was a pattern that was just a total joy to put together.  Despite the fact that the seersucker, being wrinkly, stretched at times, everything came together just right, and quickly and the final fit is perfect.  It has totally inspired me to go ahead and make the one I've planned for myself!