Yohji Yamamoto jacket

This month's stashbusting sewalong theme is using patterns that you already have. Given that I make most of my patterns, I couldn't think of anything that I would be able to sew on theme this month. Until I remembered a PDF pattern that I had printed out last year, and abandoned when I realised the pattern would need more work to line up properly. Too much effort when you already have real work to do!! I can't remember who it was, but a member of the stashbusting group last year made this jacket and posted it to the Stashbusting Facebook group, and I was inspired enough at the time to download the pattern. That turned out well for me though, as it gave me a stash pattern to use this month.

The pattern is the Yohji Yamamoto mystery jacket, downloadable for free from Show Studio. No instructions were given when this pattern came out in 2002, just some pattern markings to work from. I have a confession to make, I did a google search and found instructions for the construction. Why waste all that brain power when someone else already has?

As with anything that you think is just too hard, the pattern took very little time to fix, and before I knew it, I had the jacket cut out and all sewn up. The hardest part was trying to get my Coverstitch machine to work without skipping stitches. Which it didn't. It's a little temperamental at the best of times, and more than half the long hem is 4 layers of fabric, so it skipped about 10 patches of stitches across the length of that hem. I won't show you photos of how I fixed it up, it just looks so messy on the inside. Not so bad on the outside though!

I didn't put any kind of closure on mine, and it looks infinitely better upside down on me than the intended direction. As I was sewing it up I wasn't sure which way was going to look best, so I didn't know where to put my label. It's ended up in a seam near my neck.

The join in the side where the sleeves attach looks a little weird. It's pulling the sleeve rather awkwardly, but seems kinda OK when upside I wear it upside down. Anyway, it's a nice lightweight jacket that's comfortable to wear, and will be great for between seasons.

Maybe I'll have a play with the pattern and design my own weird and wonderful draped jacket? Who else has been playing with Japanese designs lately?