A Rigel with snails (and a hidden rrrowwrr!)

Here’s a pattern I’ve been meaning to make since I first saw it – the Rigel bomber jacket from Papercut.

Of course, it’s not really jacket weather here at the moment, since we’re at the height of summer. But hey, the last project-for-myself that I shared with you here was a long-sleeved heavy wool cardigan, so I guess a bomber jacket is a step closer to more seasonally appropriate? (And hey, I made a swim suit in winter, so summer sewing does happen. Just not necessarily in summer. Hmmm.)

Anyways, back in November last year, there was a bit of a conversation happening on Instagram with Ginger around how a bunch of us have the Rigel pattern, really want to make it, and haven’t gotten around to it yet. Clearly, we needed a bit of encouragement. And so, Rigel Bomber Jacket January was born! A time to pull out those Rigel patterns that have been languishing in our stashes, and actually use them.

I’m pretty happy that this happened – because hey, now I have a bomber jacket with snails on it! Oh yeah!!

The fabric came from Tomato in the Tokyo fabric district – part of my fabric haul when we were there just over a year ago. It’s a cotton/linen blend lightweight canvas, similar to Echino canvas but with a slightly looser weave. Nice to work with – it holds pressing well, loves being sewn, and doesn’t fray too badly either. And, you know – snails! 😀

Since I plan on wearing this a lot during spring and autumn (I currently have another bomber jacket I wear during those months – when you need an extra layer, but a full winter coat is a bit too much, but the zip on one pocket is broken, and things fall out as a result, which annoys me lots so I’ve been wanting to replace it. Plus, being RTW, the sleeves are too short on me) I wanted this one to be a bit warmer than just one layer of lightweight canvas. So, I added a lining. And I underlined it with flanelette. And just for fun (inspired by Ginger’s post with her quilted lining) I quilted the lining and underlining together.

It took for-evah! And used one heck of a lot of thread. But I’m so glad I did this – it gives a nice texture inside, and adds a touch of luxury to the jacket. Plus it makes me smile when I look at it, which means the hours spent doing the quilting were well worth it. (Disclaimer: I actually have no idea how long it took to do the quilting. Like the jacket itself, all sewing was done in short bursts with a baby who usually only cat-naps during the day. One line of stitching here, another one two hours later, that kind of thing.)

Wanna see the flannelette I used as underlining? ‘Course you do! Check it out – happy pea-pods!

Yep, I have a jacket covered in snails, with hidden secret under-the-lining happy pea pods. Some days, it makes me crazy happy that I can sew my own clothes – where else would I find combinations like this?!?

Anyways. I originally wanted to find a chocolate brown ribbing, but couldn’t track any down anywhere – this teal blue was the best I could find. A happy accident, since I really like how it looks with the blue shells of the snails. The zip is a not-very-exciting-but-perfectly-functional chocolate brown zip. (Both ribbing and zip are from Spotlight. That place we all love to hate around these parts, but often also the only place to get some things. *sigh*)

I partially chose the fabric for this because it’s currently Jungle January. Woo hoo! I do love Jungle January – that crafty leopard of a host is hilarious and it’s so much fun to read the posts. 🙂 I figure that any self-respecting jungle has at least one species of snail in it, so snails are my ode to the jungle this January. (Hence why I’m standing around in random foliage – gotta blend in with the snails territory, after all.)

Snails are also clearly masters of disguise, as they do remarkably well as urban camoflage….

Speaking of Jungle January, there is a hidden rrrooawrrr! in this bomber, too. Check it out – secret stealth leopard print pocket linings! Woah yeah!!

Rawrrrr!!! I am a leopard in disguise, oh yes I am.

(Disclaimer: not really. Although I always thought being a black panther would be pretty awesome, they’re so pretty.)

Anyways, onto the pattern.

It’s a nice and easy pattern to make up – good instructions, raglan sleeves so no pesky setting in sleeves business, and crazy-easy welt pockets. Gotta love that!

Aside from drafting a lining (you can read how I did that over here), the only other change I made was to the sleeves. I’m tall, with crazy-long-gorilla-arms, so I added three inches to the sleeve length. (I kinda mis-measured to begin with and only added one inch, so I’m very glad I stitched up the lining first and tried it on to discover that mistake! Hence why there’s a band of snails around the wrists of the lining of the jacket – it’s a patch-up job, disguised as a “design feature”.) Even with that extra three inches, I feel these sleeves are only just long enough – next time, I’ll add four inches instead.

One change I will make next time – I’m not really happy with how the ribbing is sitting at the neckline. It’s a bit too loose and sticks out from my neck a bit. I tried folding it over on itself, which kinda looks a bit better at the front, but kinda doesn’t at the back….

Worn as normal:

Folded down:

Anyway, it may well be because the ribbing I used wasn’t the best (see previous comment about Spotlight – the place we love to hate) and potentially too lightweight for this, but either way I think that next time I make the Rigel I’ll make the neck ribbing a bit narrower so it doesn’t sit up as high.

I’m also going to widen the shoulders a bit, since I have broad shoulders. But that’s not an uncommon adjustment for me to have to make, either. Coz, you know – tall and stuff.

Aside from that, I’m totally loving my new jacket! Quilting the lining really did make me happy, and it’s encouraging me to take more time to add those sorts of little details to my creations this year to make them extra special (even if no one else sees the bits that make them special – it’s all about adding things that make me smile, after all!).

Just ‘coz I’m so happy with this, I finally got around to making up some labels as well, and stitched one in. (Thanks to The Curious Kiwi for the inspiration of sewing a label onto a scrap of fabric first – I love the way that looks and plan to copy her idea for all future sewing-in-of-labels.)

(Have you made up a Rigel bomber jacket this January? Why not add it to the Flickr pool? Ginger, Mel and I will be picking three people from there to each win a Papercut pattern of their choice at the start of February.)

Tutorial: how to line the Papercut Rigel bomber jacket

My current project (well, my just-completed-but-no-photos-yet project, really) is the Rigel bomber jacket by Papercut Patterns. I made one key change to the pattern while sewing it up – I added a lining. Which, from looking around the blog-o-sphere, is something that quite a few people have done, or want to do. So, in case it’s useful for anyone else, here’s how I lined my Rigel bomber jacket….

Rigel bomber from Papercut Patterns

Now, usually linings in jackets have more ease than the jacket itself – if you look at any tailored, lined RTW jacket you’ll usually see it has a small pleat at the centre back just below the neckline facing, and the lining is also longer at the hem and sleeve cuffs and bags out slightly. Since the Rigel bomber is a loose-fitting style (and since I wanted to do a quilted lining for my jacket) I haven’t added any of that extra ease – instead, the lining pieces I made were directly from the main jacket pieces. (It’s pretty easy to add the extra ease if you want it though – simply make your lining pieces longer, and add a small extension at the top of the centre back seam of the lining.) So with that in mind, let’s get started!

Cutting the lining

Three new pattern pieces need to be made for the lining – front, back and sleeves. Start by tracing the original front, back, and sleeve pieces. (Note: use variation 1 sleeve as a base for the lining, no matter which variation you’re making.) Remember to mark on all three pieces that they’re for the lining!

Trace the front, back and sleeve pattern pieces

Front lining

Trace the facing pattern piece onto your front lining piece, lining up the edg of the facing with the edg of th front lining, and making sure . (It’ll be the same width as the front extension.)

Place facing on front lining pattern piece

Facing traced onto lining pattern piece

Add 2cm seam allowance from the line you just traced, towards the centre front seam. (Why 2cm? Because the original facing piece doesn’t have seam allowance on the open edge. Since we’re now going to be attaching another piece to it, we need to allow for seam allowance for both sides of that new seam. It’s easier to add it to the new lining piece rather than mucking around with two pattern pieces.)

Draw a line 2cm towards centre front seam

Cut along your new line – the larger piece is now your front lining. Yay! (You won’t need any lining on the front extension of the jacket as the facing will take care of that part, so just cut straight across from the bottom of the lining piece to the new line you made.)

Cut along line

Back lining

Trace the facing pattern piece onto your back lining, with the neck edges aligned. The curved end of the facing is the one that lines up along the back, as this will follow the curve of your neck. The facing has a centre back seam and the back lining won’t, so we’ll need to adjust for this – simply let the facing piece overhang at the centre back by 1cm.

(Note: if you’re wanting to incorporate an ease pleat in your lining (that little pleat you see in the lining of most fitting jackets near the back neckline) this is when to do it. Once you’ve got your back lining traced out, simply extend the back neckline of the lining by 1cm at the centre back and connect the new point to the bottom of the centre back with a straight line. Remember to mark where the ease is, so when you sew it up you can create a small pleat there.)

Place facing on back lining pattern piece, overhanging by 1cm at centre back

Facing traced onto lining pattern piece

Add 2cm seam allowance towards the outside edge.

Draw a line 2cm towards neck edge

Cut along your new line.

Cut along line

Sleeve lining

Rather than messing around with figuring out which part of the facing to trace onto the sleeve, we’re simply going to measure it. The facing is 8.5cm wide. So, to allow for the 2cm seam allowance that needs to be added, measure down 6.5cm from the upper edge of the sleeve, and draw a line that follows the curve of the sleeve.

Draw line 6.5cm below edge

Cut along your new line.

Cut along line

Sewing the lining

Cut out and stitch the lining pieces together the same as you would for the jacket shell – attach the sleeves to the front lining pieces, and also to the back lining piece.

Attaching the facing to the lining

Pin the centre back seam of the facing to the centre back of the back lining, right sides together. The facing will be curving downwards.

Pin facing to lining, aligning facing centre back seam with centre back neckline

Pin the rest of the facing to the lining. Make sure the distance from the end of the lining to the end of the facing is the same as the front extension, i.e. 7cm. You’ll need to ease the facing onto the lining, due to the difference in curvature at the edges.

Facing extends by 7cm at the bottom

Press the seam towards the facing.

Your lining is now finished, and ready to be sewn into your jacket shell.

(Note: the fabric at the end of the sleeves of my lining is the same as my facing, because of a late pattern adjustment to lengthen the sleeves. Just in case you’re wondering why the lining fabric doesn’t extend right to the end of the sleeves in these and the following photos. I has long gorilla arms. :-p )

Lining with facing attached

Lining with facing attached

Sewing the jacket shell

Stitch up the jacket shell as per the instructions, with the following changes:

• when attaching the bottom ribbing, stitch the short end onto the front extension with a 1cm seam allowance, rather than folding the front extension under and topstitching to attach the ribbing
• don’t topstitch around the bottom ribbing (or you’ll have trouble attaching the lining!). Instead, press the seams of the ribbing towards the jacket body
• when you get to the instructions for attaching the facing, skip over these and go and attach the sleeve cuffs instead

Sewing in the lining

Attaching the lining to the jacket body

Pin the lining onto he jacket as per the instructions for attaching the facing, and continue pinning all the way along the bottom of the jacket as well. Make sure the bottom ribbing is folded inside, just like the neck ribbing is, so it doesn’t get caught in the stitching).

Sew the lining to the jacket, leaving a 10cm gap for turning the jacket back around the right way (I left my turning gap at the bottom of the jacket). Tip: When stitching, have the shell fabric on the top, so that you can follow the stitching lines for the zip and ribbing to get the lining perfectly aligned on the inside with no stitching showing.

The tricky bit will be the corners of the ribbing along the bottom of the jacket – follow the line of stitching that you made when attaching the ribbing to the jacket shell, and pivot at the corners. Clip the lining to the stitching at the corner (just as you did with the jacket shell at the same point) so it sits flat.

Turn your jacket the right way around, through the gap you left when attaching the lining. Poke out the corners at the bottom of the front extension so they’re nice and sharp, and give them a good press.

Attaching the lining to the sleeves

First, try your jacket on to make sure your lining isn’t twisted inside the sleeves. The lining should be sitting nicely inside the sleeves, with the seams of both lining and shell aligned.

Fold a small section of the seam allowance of the lining under and pin it to the shell, mimicing how it will look when it’s sewn. (Note: this pin is to make sure the lining and the shell don’t get twisted while we’re stitching the sleeve lining on, so you only need to pin a small section. One pin will be enough.) It’s a good idea to pin at or next to the seams, to make sure the lining doesn’t get twisted in the next steps. They

Pin lining to sleeve at seam

Reach inside the jacket through the gap you left when attaching the lining to the shell, and pull the sleeve out through the gap. The sleeve and the sleeve lining will now be next to each other, attached by the small section you just pinned.

Sleeve and lining next to each other, attached by small pinned section

Pinch the pinned section together so it doesn’t move, take out the pin, and repin it with right sides together and raw edges aligned so you can stitch them together.

Tuck the cuff down inside the seam so it doesn’t get caught in the stitching, and pin the sleeve and the sleeve lining together all the way around with the raw edges aligned and right sides together.

Pin lining to sleeve, with the cuff tucked inside

Stitch together. (Tip: stitch with the shell on top, so you can follow the line of stitching you made when you attached the cuff.)

Sew lining to sleeve, following the stitching line

Pull the sleeve back through to the right side of the jacket – it’ll now be all nicely lined! 🙂

Repeat the process with the second sleeve.

Finishing

Slipstitch the gap in the lining closed, give it all a good press, and you’re done! Yay! 🙂

Rigel Bomber Jacket January is here!

So, back in November, the lovely Ginger put up an Instagram pic of some of her patterns. Sitting at the top of the pile was the Rigel Bomber Jacket pattern
from Papercut. Which kicked off a whole Instagram conversation amoungst a bunch of people, where it transpired that a lot of us have that pattern, it’s been near the top of our things-to-sew queues for ages, and we still haven’t gotten around to making it up even though we really want to. Clearly, something needed to be done to give some of us that final push into making it up. And so, Rigel Bomber Jacket January was born!

The plan: make up those Rigel patterns we have! (Or will have, for those of you out there who are keen to join in but don’t have the pattern yet.)

Ginger Makes, The Curious Kiwi and I teamed up to spur each other on, to encourage anyone else who wants to join us, and to make up our Rigels this January! Oh yeah, Rigel Bomber Jacket January!

We even have a badge for it, designed by the awesome Mel:

We’re going to be putting up inspiration posts, occasional tutorials (such as how to line the Rigel jacket), and sharing our progress and we go along the Rigel journey.

And if you need a little bit extra incentive to join us, there’s even a competition happening! Make up the Rigel pattern this January, and post it to the Flickr group by the end of the month, and you could win a Papercut pattern of your choice. There will be three winners, who each win a pattern courtesy of the lovely Katie (the designer behind Papercut).

In convenient timing, there was even a PDF version of the Rigel pattern released in December, so if you don’t have it yet and want to get started straight away, that impulse can be met. 😉

I pulled together the supplies I need for my Rigel today:

The jacket is going to be in the brown cotton/linen blend with snails on it, that I purchased in Tokyo just over a year ago. The ribbing is teal blue, and the zip is chocolate brown. I’m going to line it, using the dark green lining, and to add a bit of extra warmth I’m going to do a quilted lining, using the peapod-print flannelette on the inside. (One thing missing from this picture – pocket lining fabric. Still need to decide what I’m using for that, but I can assure you it will be some sort of random pattern that will make me smile whenever I see it.)

(I chose the snails fabric for this one, as I figure it works for Jungle January as well. Snails! Yeah!!)

My partner is back at work on Monday and the Little Man is back in daycare from then as well, so fingers crossed the Smallest One sleeps a bit and lets me sew next week, as I’ve been seriously missing those dates with my sewing machines!!! 😛

So, how about you? Have you got the Rigel pattern in your stash, too? Will you be joining us in making it up this January? We’ll be showing progress photos on Twitter and Instagram, using the tag #rigelbomberjanuary – join the conversation! 🙂