Kwik Sew 3764 - Zipping Along

If you look at the inspiration jacket carefully, you'll see there are some differences between it:



and the pattern:



Mainly, the inspiration does not have the slanted seams in the front and the zipper is inserted into a separate seam which is not drafted into the KS pattern, and the inspiration has pockets/flaps inserted into the princess seams.

This meant some time at the drafting table for me. Here are my resulting pattern pieces:



The horizontal length adjustment tuck I mentioned last post is visible on the piece on your left. I straightened the diagonal front seam, and also added some hip/tummy room from the waist downward at the princess seam. Straightening that diagonal seam by just drawing straight downward works for me because the pattern is actually too small at the hip and this solves both problems at once. Or at least I hope so, since I pretty much just winged it by putting on the muslin, drawing on it to get a general idea of what goes where, and then eyeballing that onto the pattern pieces.

After that was done, I traced the main piece and split it apart for the zipper insertion. These are the two pattern pieces you see on the right in the pic above.

I also made a pocket flap piece, shown on the left. I'll insert it into the seam about where you see it on my (very messy) floor in the pic. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make working pockets or just have a faux flap. If I do go with working pockets, I'm not going to create a separate pocket bag and instead will have a *really* big pocket bag since it will actually be all of the facing yet to be attached. I do not want another layer of sweatshirt fleece here to add more bulk than I provide myself. ;-)

Here's the zipper inserted into the new seam I created:



My zipper was an inch too long, because I decided to add an extra inch and a half to the length of the pattern. That meant wrestling with the metal teeth. There's a tool to do this, but I don't have one. I used needle nose pliers and a flathead screwdriver, and lots of struggling.



But I eventually persevered and even managed to re-use the zipper stops so it doesn't look Becky Home-Ecky.



I know I won't finish this today, but I should be able to make some good progress. I'm off tomorrow and hopefully I can finish it then. Our weather is staying cool this week so maybe I can even wear it.

Go Jets!