I finished the dotty jacket.

I finished it and wore it downtown to meet up with a friend of mine.  I got a couple compliments and one lady wanted to know where I got it ... Ha Ha! Said it looked like snow balls all over me.

Here is the winter white wool I bought for the collar . I was going to make loops and buttons for the closure, but the more I though about it, there are already so many little white bumps that looks like buttons, I didn't thing that would look very good. 

I decided a big exposed zipper would be the best choice.  I wanted the zipper to run up into the collar so I ordered two zippers 30 inches long.  I wasn't sure which color would be best. It was cheaper to order 2 zippers from Wawak than it would have been to go to the store AND they have a much better selection.  I ordered them Tuesday afternoon and they were on my door step at 11 am the next day.  WOW

You can see the white zipper is too white, so grey it will be.

I measured just how far the zipper extended beyond the neck seam.

I fussed with it to get the place where the ends of the collar join to follow the same angle as the front closing for the rest of the jacket

And made a collar muslin to fit that measurement.

The zipper will go to the top of the collar, but I want it to also look good when it is partially unzipped like this.

Now I can cut the collar out of the real fabric. After one side of it is sewn to the neckline, I can put in the zipper.

I sew the zipper to one side of the opening up to the top of the collar and the bottom of the hip band.

Trim the seam allowance so the edge hides under the zipper.

I pin on the other side ...

Flip it around and press it.

So I can whipstitch the edge of the zipper down to the inside of the jacket.

and turn it over to make sure the collar seam matches up on both sides.

I'm getting excited, I have to put it on my form so I can see how it's looking.

Now all that's left is to close everything up with mostly a bunch of hand stitching.

I pinned and slipstitched in inside of the collar. And don't you hate it when you are trying to sew fast and the thread gets into a horrible knot!

Then, I Hong Kong finished the inside edge of the collar, graded the seam and then carefully stitched in the ditch from the outside.  This reduced the bulk of this very thick fabric because some of the seams allowance was going up into the collar and some was going down below the seam line.


I love this jacket, a lot.