me and gerry brave the cold

so some friends and i have this joke. basically, every time things seem to be particularly wretched in our lives, someone sends out the call:

is mercury in retrograde again?!

and, as of this writing, the answer is indisputably yes. someone even understood the importance of this cosmic question for the ages enough to make it easy to find out why your life is going totally haywire for no apparent reason.

we are in our second snowstorm in two weeks, which is actually pretty good if you think back to the horror show that was last winter on the east coast of the us. but it is never fun to play slip-n-slide on the hills of new jersey on one’s way to work in the morning.

even though this winter is tame compared to 2014, i have to confess to a bit of cabin fever. it’s been cold and windy and icky and i haven’t wanted to go too many places or do too many things – and the one thing i did do has necessitated a lot of staying at home for socialization purposes.

          

mine or theirs? i will let you decide.

but i did at last complete gerry and get some photographs of us enjoying the brisk winter air together. spoiler warning: the interlining was so worth it.

and this pattern, to my mind, was just impeccably drafted. i say that because the lapel and facings turned perfectly and fell right into place with just a bit of pressing and some catch-stitching. the lapel broke at the break point and folded under exactly where it was supposed to and putting this collar and lapel together was about the easiest one i have ever done.

because all of my fabric choices were so bulky, i was extremely focused on trimming down seam allowances and also catch-stitching them open. so every seam in this garment is pressed, trimmed, and stitched down. i ended up not taping the roll lines on the lapels – instead i steamed them into place by pressing the lapel fabric over a towel lined up where the roll line would be. and, like with most indie patterns, i had to find my own roll line. hey – indie pattern people – a little guidance would be nice on these things, is all i am saying.

i did interface the jacket front, collars and lapels with sew-in hair canvas. instead of cutting out the pieces with no seam allowance, i cut out extra pattern pieces of muslin, based the muslin to the hair canvas, and then cut the hair canvas out of the seam allowance to leave just the muslin behind. that way i got a nice, non-bulky place to rest my hair canvas without too much angst. doing this adds a lot of up-front work during planning and cutting but is, in my experience, worth it. (it is a trick i learned from kenneth king and detailed instructions can be found in his book, the tailored jacket.) i used this same technique for my interlining.

ginger recently posted a 2nd gerard and i think between her two versions and my own one can really see the differences that fabric choice can make in a garment.

mine feels huge and square and bulky, which is actually quite lovely because it is so warm. but it’s a different shape than i typically favor so every time i put it on i have to adjust my expectations a bit.

i do love that it covers the bum for that extra bit of warmth, though.