A Jacket to Fight Cancer

A Donation 

to a 

Fight Ovarian and Breast Cancer Benefit

Last week, the wonderful group of women friends and acquaintances with whom I share a community  sponsored a two-day charity event with a cocktail party, golf tournament, and luncheon to raise funds to help women in our small rural North Carolina mountain county who are fighting ovarian or breast cancers. Several thousand dollars were raised at this event.

The organizers put out a call for items for a silent auction, so I made a lined, hooded silk doupioni jacket for the cause. I was thrilled that it garnered $150 in the bidding. Yay!

Here's the jacket. I thought that Fall tones would be nice, so it is made in colors of rust and deep burnt orange:

Silk doupioni hooded jacket, fully lined with fine Japanese cotton

Back view

Lining view

 It was difficult to photograph this jacket with the richness of its deep rust colors of the shell and the lining fabric, but believe me, the colors are gorgeous.

Fabrics: 
Shell: Rust iridescent silk doupioni from my stash
Lining: Cotton from Angela Marcos' Etsy Shop, a Japanese cotton fabric manufactured by Daiwabo for EE Schenk's Cara Collection. It is 44-45 inches wide (110 cm). It is much more rust-colored than the reds shown in this Etsy photo, but here's a closeup:

Pattern: 
Burda design from the
Burda World of Fashion magazine (now Burda Style), November 2007, #126.

Line drawing

Two-piece pattern, almost origami-like in its design

 I made this jacket once before, for my DD, out of silk doupioni and silk taffeta, and 'blogged about it here.

Here is a photo of  DD's jacket:

The Closures:
 
The jacket is closed with magnetic snaps, which keeps the design simple. I pick stitched around each square to keep it in place:

This photo shows the true color of the silk doupioni the best. It's really a very pretty color

 I wrote a tutorial on how to sandwich the large square magnets into a " silk ravioli" and stitch them in place in that previous 'blog post. In this jacket, I used silk organza for the raviolis.

Here's what the Dritz brand magnets look like:

Dritz 1.25 inch magnetic sew on snaps

  

The Pockets:
With this jacket, I added pockets. I wanted them to be trimmed at the top with the least amount of bulk possible. To do this, I started with two pieces of fabric, one fashion fabric and one lining, cut to the same size. The extra fashion fabric was trimmed away in one of the final steps. I essentially faced the top edge of the pocket with the width of the seam allowance showing. That way, the top edge trim and the lining of the pocket are all one piece.

Here's the method I devised, with photos. The fashion fabric is muslin with blue diagonal lines drawn on it and the lining fabric is the muslin with the squiggly orange lines.

The completed pocket, with all seam allowances enclosed

After making the fold, stitch the pocket on the two sides and part of the lower edge so that those seam allowances will be hidden when the pocket is turned.

(Once you've turned and pressed the pocket in the next step, you will slip stitch that lower opening closed.)

I'm sure this method (or a better one) must be published somewhere, as there is really nothing new in sewing techniques, but I had to figure it out myself and am quite pleased with the results.

I was a bit hesitant to make this jacket for the charity benefit. After all, taste and fit in clothing are personal choices. I told the event director when I dropped the jacket off that I made it in my size, so just in case it didn't get any bids, I could make a donation for it and take it back home. Imagine my surprise when I showed up at the cocktail party/silent auction and saw a friend modeling the jacket for all to see. And there were bids already for it! It was a thrill, I must admit.