playing catch up: the Neponset jacket

Remember the photoshoot I did late in the summer at and around my family farm? And how I talked about it influencing my work?

Nope, didn't think so. Obviously, I have some catching up to do.

Meet the Neponset jacket. It's named after Neponset, IL: a half-way village, half-way between Kewanee and Sheffield.

I drafted the pattern myself on graph paper, then made a muslin, then tweaked and drafted some more. I think if I were to make more of these, I would want to tweak it just a tad more - the bodice shape still doesn't seem quite right to me.

Actually, the pattern was one I had been working on prior to my visit to Kewanee, influenced by other cropped jackets I'd seen this summer. After that trip, however, I was thinking more and more about parallel lines, contouring and vanishing points. Thus, as the project continued, it came to be less about the shape than about the texture and finishing - the parallel weave of twill, the neck binding, the flat-felled seams. (Which is also, most likely, why the shape still needs to be tweaked!)

The fabric is, long story short, from a scrap stash given me by a librarian. I love everything about this twill - its color, its drape, its strong grain and its flannel-like softness - and I've searched endlessly and in vain in attempts to match it (begone from my sight, ye bolts of stiff polyester khaki!). If anyone has any leads, let me know!

You may have noticed I've fastened it with safety pins. Which doesn't work so well. Finding the Perfect Finishing (TM) seems always to be an issue with me, yet so critical to design! The devil's in the details. I'll have to marry a button-maker, I suppose - or design from existing notions!

A parting shot to show off the neck binding and the super-cool labels made from Amanda's tutorial. Felicitous, you ask? Oh, it's just a dream . . .