Stashbusting Sewalong: June Theme "Stretch fabrics" - Moto Jacket

Sometimes I don't have a fully fledged plan in mind before I start on a project. Over the past couple of months I've seen a few Moto Jackets popping up around the blogosphere, and the gears in my brain started turning, plotting how I could make my own. With this germ of an idea, I paired an old pair of jeans that I identified during Me-Made-May as ripe for refashioning, and grabbed some rib knit fabric that I thought would do really well for the sleeves. All that was left was to buy myself a zipper, and start on a pattern.

I should mention right now that the only suitable zipper that I found was 60 cm long. A bit longer than I was after, but I didn't want my jacket too short either, so I thought I'd just live with it. Then I came up against my second problem. Due to the length of the jacket, and the width of the panels that I'd just drafted, the jeans did not have enough fabric in them for the body of my jacket. A quick rummage through the stash revealed a new contender for the role of hero fabric: a cotton / spandex blend denim in navy with a light tan stripe. The stripes looked like they would work better with my knit fabric too. It also meant that that entire jacket was going to be made of stretch fabrics, a perfect candidate for the Stashbusting Sewalong theme for June

I honestly don't know how this jacket managed to work. The pattern took a couple of days to finish off, mainly because it kept evolving as I went, adding a panel in here, pockets at the waistline, a yoke there.

I sewed up the body in my blue fabric first, then gave myself the weekend to think about how to finish off the arms and collar, and what to do about lining the entire jacket.

The fabric was too thin to leave unlined, it wouldn't have been worth making in the first place if it wasn't going to keep me warm! I used the same fabric for the lining that I used for the sleeves, and made both layers of the collar from this as well.

I made cuffs for the sleeves from the blue fabric, joining them around the front two thirds of the sleeve, easing it in as I went. The remaining third of the cuff is made of the rib knit, with elastic to pull the sleeve in a little more at the wrist. I used the same rib knit to line the jacket, and for both sides of the collar. The sleeves I left unlined, as I couldn't really work out what fabric to line them with. For Sydney weather they seem quite warm enough anyway.

And because I still had a few days left of June once I finished on this, I used up some more of the rib knit to make a long sleeve shirt! But more on that later.