Butterick 6261 in Glen Plaid Suiting

If you've been reading for awhile you know that I swore off Butterick's Connie Crawford patterns years ago after having a bad experience with one. But this one came across my feed and I thought I would give them another try...

My version is not exactly the same as the pattern picture but it works for me because it has the elements I wanted. It's a swingy topper with some interest made from one of the many glen plaid fabrics from the collection which goes perfectly with a pair of black jeans.

Materials ~
- Black 'n White Wool Glen Plaid from the collection by way of Fabric Mart
- Black lightweight fusible interfacing from Fashion Sewing Supply
- 4 buttons from the collection

Another garment made totally from items in the Sewing Cave which makes me soooooo happy! This is a ltwt. wool vest that I can wear during the spring before the heat sets in and it will be perfect again come fall. I made this in February. I'm just posting it to the blog because well it was "Shirt Month" last month.

Pattern Information ~
Can we talk about the pattern and it's sizing, first. Since its a Connie Crawford pattern the sizing goes up to a 6x. It's also a loose-fitting pattern and I needed not to succumb to my tendencies to choose a size with too much ease. To help me with this, I googled the ease wearing chart and came up with these two resources. The first one is an article on Craftsy by Patti Palmer about Ease.  The second one is the actual ease chart on the Butterick website.

Via Craftsy website

After reviewing the chart, I decided that 10" ease qualified as loose fitting (check that it's 5 7/8" to 10" for a jacket) and anything else would end up looking sloppy on me. With that decision, I chose to make a size 2x. Though I'm printing that chart out and putting it with my measurements on my bulletin board so that I don't have to look for it again!!!

Construction Info ~
I made this considerably more challenging because I used an uneven glen plaid instead of the even small check that the pattern was photographed in. All that plaid matching took time.  Then I decided to add black piping to the front of the jacket and the collar. More time but I like how the solid line of black defines the front of the jacket.

Additional construction information:
1. Added black bias tape to the shoulder seams to stabilize them
2. I used 4 buttons instead of the three recommended. I usually like an odd number of buttons but I put an additional one above the bustline seam.
3. I also added a small snap to the front to keep it closed.

Sleeves:
Disregard the pattern instructions where it tells you to sew the sleeve into the jacket and then hem it. You can do it but then you have to drag the entire jacket around the sewing machine. 

I topstitched the hem facing and then hemmed the sleeves before I inserted the sleeves into the jacket. It was just easier to do these tasks.

3. Even though the pattern tells you to machine stitch the hems down on the jacket and the sleeves, I hand stitched them.  I wanted a clean finish on the jacket.

I cut my sleeves on the bias because I was too lazy to try to match the plaid across the front and back of the jacket. I figured the bias wouldn't need to match, it would just coordinate...because bias! And then no matter what I did, the sleeves did not go into the jacket right. 

Even after I worked out a solution to make the sleeves fit and hang properly, when I put a lightweight turtleneck under the jacket, it felt awkward on. So I decided to ditch the sleeves entirely and make it a vest.  

That's when I decided to add the piping to the armholes to tie it to the front of the vest.

A few pictures ~

Conclusion ~
I'm still not sure I like Connie Crawford patterns. I'm sure these patterns probably work wonderfully for others, it's just not all patterns are for all sewists. I'm just one of those that it doesn't work for and this is a one and done sew for me. I'm totally uninspired to use this pattern again.

So a couple of things:
- I'm kinda bummed because I tracked this pattern down and paid 50% off for it instead of the normal $2.
- I'm glad that I used a fabric from my old "professional" life for this project. It shows me that I can use these fabrics in my new life.
- I love the flare/swing of this vest.
- The black piping and black buttons are the best part to me.
- When I wore this to work, it was comfortable and even though I looked a little dressier than normal, I would wear this outfit again.

I'm moving on to the next garment...

...as always more later!