Ziggi 2

April 16, 2014 by sewruth 62 Comments

My mother is not exactly IT literate if you know what I mean? The absolute polar opposite of her fourth grandson (my teenage son). She’s a great baker, homemaker, carer, chatterer and mum but Anna and computers are an oxymoron.

She tries….she really tries….mostly our patience, God bless her…..She has completed at least one 12 weeks’ course on how to work e-mail and internet; my father’s endless patience has actually been empirically proved to Harvard mathematicians that infinity is NOT infinite, and she doesn’t read my blog because she can’t find it as HER version of Google doesn’t include “Corecouture” in its search.

So when I turned up at their house the other day wearing my fab Ziggi jacket I was met with two opposing points of view….

1. My own mother did not believe that I had sewn this jacket with my own fair hands and asked which shop I bought it from.

2. That I did such a good job that it would actually be impossible for me to have sewn it and so indirectly, it’s a compliment.

Hence, to literally to prove a point – if you ever see this Mother…. this is for you….. if your Google isn’t broken….

Fabric before it was cut

Half made Ziggi 2 on Doris; sleeves pinned on. Recognise the background?

A sleeve

And for the rest of you….. I set up my own GNISB (Great Northern Irish Sewing Bee) in the sewing room over the last few days and quite literally got stuck in to sewing another StyleArc Ziggi biker jacket. Thankfully, I had all the necessary bits and pieces and so did not need to stop for anything. Mind you, the seam ripper is used a lot with this jacket!

Cut out on Friday night, all ready to sew the next day; 4 hours on Saturday, 3 hours on Sunday, 2 hours Monday, 6 hours Tuesday and 1.5 on Wednesday to do some hand sewing, finishing and final press. These are guessimates really as I sew in spurts but I suppose a good 20 hours would see this jacket completed. And it is my second one, so I knew what to watch out for. However, this sewing marathon has made me neglect internet reading and catching up on all your wonderful makes – so for the next few days, I’m not sewing anything and will be commenting prolifically…..

Main fabric is from Chrysalis No. 20 – a very interesting fabric, distressed leather-look jersey. No fraying, stretchy but yet stable, not quite black but not any other colour either. I used a ball-point needle in the machine for sewing this. It would make fab leggings and I have a little bit left over which I might turn into sleeves on a T-shirt a la Elizabeth from Sewn (scroll all the way to the bottom).

The shoulder yokes, sleeve tops and sleeve gussets are black lamb’s suede – soft as velvet, a small hide that was purchased via ebay. And the left over suede was cut into strips and used as zipper pulls.

I quilted the shoulder yokes, the sleeve tops, the bottom half of the sleeves and the back peplum in Burberry inspired rows of single stitching. I did add one layer of cotton wadding and a woven cotton backing to all quilted pieces. I like the way this works on the shoulders as it feels like shoulder pads and just in case I ever fall off a motor bike, my ass is protected too! It also really surprising how effective a few rows of straight stitching actually are.

For this one I lengthened the sleeves by 1″ but sewed it up with 1.5cm seam allowances instead of the recommended 1cm – with this stretchy fabric I reckoned I could do with the extra fitting. I always nip in a the waistline too. Apart from that, it’s cut from the pattern.

Lining is a silky smooth patterned poly.

I have to thank Maris, from Sewmaris without whose excellent blog tutorials on Ziggi construction would have made this project twice as long. It’s always nice to have a friendly voice of experience in the background for reassurance and advice, just when you need it. Thanks Maris.

Maris was extra nice to me when she nominated me for a Liebster Award too. Thank you once again.