What? A completely new pattern? Not the Tessuti Mandy again? Whatever has gotten into me?

— Well, a few years ago I found this jacket on Pinterest and really loved it.

Initially I was too chicken to try and wing a copy, but then, — great excitement –, Vogue published V9135, a Katherine Brenne pattern that was very similar. Yes, it has taken me years and a pandemic to actually get around to making it, but better late than never.

The pattern is less extreme in body width (note the width where the sleeve joins the body) and the collar is more restrained too, which is all to the good. These days I still like oversized, but much less that in my Lagenlook heyday. That particular insanity has passed.

Having stepped out of my TNT comfort zone I made a muslin first, which got the tick for shape, although the fabric I had used was a pink country print which was a bit off putting.

Confined to the house because of the dreaded lurgy, I thought I would have another go with more suitable fabric. I would have preferred plain black, but the black and silver acetate was all I had in my stash. Problematic with other prints worn underneath, I know, but with this epidemic said to go on for months I will have enough jackets to go with absolutely everything. The only problem will be that none of them will fit me before long, due to my current enormous consumption of chocolate. The Easter bunny has a lot to answer for.

So here is the jacket, unfortunately proof that large prints are much more aesthetically pleasing than small ones, but hey, this print is not too bad and it will be a long time before I can rush off to a European fabric market to get a better one.

You can tell that I am not into shoes!

After I had finished this jacket, and wished very much that it was plain black, I decided to have a go at dying my original pink muslin. I thought that the print would still be visible, only tone in tone black, but happily this isn’t the case. Even a very close look can’t find any trace of it. So now I have a plain black jacket as well as the silver on black print. I suspect the plain will get a lot more wear.

Because black swallows all the light so you can’t see much in photos, I lightened them up quite a lot, which makes them look washed out and grainy, but at least you can make out the bones of the garment. The lightening does horrible things to human faces, so these photos are cropped to the essentials.