Faux Leather Jacket

 I had saved a number of pictures of suede and wool jackets that started popping around August when the fall trends started appearing and wanted to try making my own. They all seemed to have dropped sleeves, epaulets, and a gathered hem without any bottom band. They seemed easy enough to make (and modify a pattern to), so I found some faux suede knit fabric try my ideas on. 

I should have made the pattern one size bigger, but since I didn’t realize that, I ended up putting a triangular panel under the arm to have enough hemline to pleat. That was the only modification I made, besides borrowing a different collar from another pattern and adding the epaulets. 

My only challenge with this project was topstitching it. My machine was fine with sewing on this fabric, except for topstitching it. It kept wanting to skip stitches, and nothing I tried seemed to help. I played around with the speed, stitch length, I used Sewer’s Aid (that made it worse,), switched to a stretch needle (that helped a little), changed out the foot for a plastic one (also helped a bit), and finally ended up with a wash away stabilizer. It was a relief when the topstitching was finally done! 

This is a bit of a trendier piece, but I think I will get a lot of use from it in this season and years to come.