Vogue 8332 - UNCLE!!!

OK! OK! UNCLE!

This project has really whipped my hiney and I hereby throw in the towel. For now anyway.

It comes down to a simple matter of not having enough experience yet. I just don't have the skills needed to properly work on a jacket like this.

I spent a fair amount of time this past week, and pretty much the entire weekend working - patiently btw - and overcame a number of obstacles. But it wasn't enough.

First there was the infamous bias tape. Experiment #3 worked out quite well though. Using a mock flat-felled seam instead of bias tape was definitely a winner.

After figuring out how to do the seams, the rest of the reverse side went together just fine.

Then I went to work on attaching the front and hem bands to the reverse side. Hit a tempory snag in that the bands are also supposed to get the bias tape treatment. I figured out a way to get around that, and so moved forward.

Once the front and hem bands were put on, it was time to attach the front piece to the reverse piece. It all went together easily enough, but the reverse side fabric stretched out on me a bit during construction, so it hung rather loosely.

The area around the armscye was definitely going to give me difficulty. But, since I was planning on using a much more firm fabric for the reverse side, I figured this wouldn't be too much of an obstacle with the real thing.

Next it was time to attach the collar. Here is were I met my final match. I followed the instructions as best I could and well, I don't think I quite got the idea and the results showed it. The main problem were the bits at the end. The front and the collar were supposed to come together somehow so that raw edges didn't show (naturally) and I just could not get it to work.

That was pretty much the last straw. That and the fact that when I tried it on, the armscyes were definitely going to be too small. I expected the sleeves to be somewhat snug because they were in the pin fit, but I didn't expect to have problems with the armscyes.

So, enough is enough. It's time to take a few steps back and move forward at a slower pace. I'm planning on working on a couple of knit tops next. I think those will be "easy wins".

After that, I'll start thinking about how I can take smaller steps to get to the level I need to be at to tackle a project like this.