nituna

It took a few weeks of sewing, mostly in the evenings and late at night, but finally Julia's Nituna is finished and hanging in her wardrobe. Julia chose the pattern (Figgy's Nituna) and the red wool from my stash of fabrics. I am hoping this will help increase the wearability factor. This sturdy red wool has certainly done double duty. You might remember this skirt?*  For the lining I found a red floral quilting weight cotton, also an op shop buy. (See Daniel, all those stored fabrics do come in handy sometimes!) The buttons were a market buy last year.

*skirt update - I finally wore it out for dinner a few weeks back.

The pattern pieces came together well, but I did have a few issues with the welt pockets.You don't see the welt pockets? That's right, I just couldn't get my head around the instructions, so I changed it to the patch pockets. The first patch pockets I wasn't happy with, so I ended up making a new pair and lining them, which wasn't in the pattern instructions. But I'm learning that sometimes in sewing you just have go with your gut feeling. And who knows, perhaps one day I will tackle the elusive welt pocket.

I probably wouldn't recommend this pattern to a beginner sewer. Though the cut of the pattern is quite good, there were some gaps in the instructions and a few diagrams that might have come in handy, but for the most part it wasn't too hard to put together. Next time I will remember the dangers of late night sewing, as it never seems to work very well for me. This time I sewed the buttonholes on the wrong side. By the time I realised it was too late.

Overall though, I am happy with this little project. It is the first time I have sewn anything in the realm of coats or jackets, and I quite enjoyed the challenge. It felt like I was dipping my toes into the world of tailoring.