Stash-Bust 2011: Eggplant Tweed Jacket

(So those super-easy pajama pants I was making? They're now in the "I don't know what went wrong but these are totally not what I wanted and now have to be completely ripped apart and remade" pile...otherwise known as "April's Sewing Room Graveyard" because I never seem to get around to working on the stuff in it. Anyway...moving right along...)

My next project (for myself, anyway...after I finish the two pillows and four Roman shades I got from my boss today to work on) is going to be a jacket/coat made out of this eggplant and fuchsia plaid tweed. I think it will be quite a "statement" garment. Hopefully, I'll be brave enough to wear it when I get it done! ;-) I got twelve yards of the fabric at the Hancock's going out of business sale for $1.20/yd. (I had to buy the whole bolt.) I've already made a knee-length, four-gore skirt out of it, but I feel like the fabric is just begging me to make a jacket, too. And no, I will not be wearing the skirt and jacket together. That would be too much of a statement (somewhere along the lines of "I have no taste!!!").

To be honest, I'm pretty much petrified of this project. Maybe that's a good thing, since my pajama pants project, which I was so confident about, turned out so wrong. If I know and acknowledge that I don't know what I'm doing, maybe I'll be more careful. While I'm using the pattern in the picture (princess-seamed jacket with a single row of buttons and collar), I'm planning on making some changes and constructing it following the instructions in Claire Schaeffer's Couture Sewing Techniques. That means I'll be doing backings and interlinings and linings and all kinds of other scary things. I've never made something tailored before, so I have that "fish out of water" feeling.

And hopefully I'll get it done before spring! Wouldn't that be novel?