A Sydney blogger making a Sydney jacket....groundbreaking

Judging by my instagram feed, it seems practically everyone has made Tessuti's Sydney jacket at least once (some people several times even!). As usual I am late to the game - due to my contrary nature and my delight in avoiding what is popular!

However I wanted a lightweight jacket and I had some lovely wool coating fabric I bought at Easter on my mini-holiday this year from Darn Cheap Fabrics in Melbourne so it seemed a logical thing to do. The part of Sydney that I live in has barely a month of 'real' winter where it's cold enough to need a substantial coat but it is a bit chilly on my early morning commute to the city so the thought of wearing what is almost a blanket draped around my shoulders really appealed.

And when you are standing still while wearing this jacket it does drape beautifully and the pockets are at the perfect height to stand around slouchily with your hands hidden in the depths of the folds.

But, it's not really a practical jacket and to be honest I found it quite annoying to wear. I've been wearing this jacket for the last week in some windy weather and without any closures on it I felt I was continually wrapping it around me and constantly re-adjusting the fronts. And I found myself walking around with my arms crossed holding the fronts close in to prevent them flapping around, but that's not an ideal way to wear your clothes.

In terms of sewing it did take a bit of head scratching to figure out how the pieces join together. I didn't think there were enough markings on the pattern to make it quickly obvious which bits all joined together so I had to lay them out like a jigsaw puzzle to visualise how it worked, especially with that lower sleeve piece joining the upper sleeve/back yoke piece and side seams. But once that bit is worked out it's a pretty straight forward sewing project.

It also required a bit more precision sewing than I normally do, because instead of just sewing the seams right sides together the pattern requires one layer to be laid over the other and then top-stitched. First attempt I just winged it by measuring and pinning but that wasn't too successful as you can see below:

So I had to unpick that seam, and then mark chalk lines along all the seams. Actually that's not too much effort, it's just an extra step I don't need to do! But it did help get the top-stitching evenly in the centre of the overlapped edge and looks neat from the outside:

So overall, this isn't a favourite piece in my wardrobe simply due to the fussiness of wearing it. Whilst I really the look of the draped front, I like to put on my clothes and not have to re-adjust them all the time. I do however love this blue wool fabric, and I think next year I may pull it apart and remake it into a simple coat with a button front for next winter!