As soon as I bought Casual Sweet Clothes  by Noriko Sasahara I knew I had to make Jacket N.

It is a braided denim jacket and I thought it would be a really useful addition to my wardrobe.

And now begins a cautionary tale. I decided to make it a spring jacket and didn’t have any appropriate denim in my stash so I used a cotton spandex blend in white from Knitwit. I looked at the measurements at the beginning of the section and decided on my size. Duly cut it all out and stitched together the main pieces and tried them on. Looked ok. Finished the entire jacket except for the braiding and tried it on again – it was winter and too cold to keep taking my clothes off – that’s my excuse, and far out, or words to that effect, it was too big in various places and just did not look right.

I was just deciding that I was too far down the track to pull it apart and rework it when a friend happened to call round, I put it on her and she looked sensational. OK, not a complete waste then. Here is Doris posing casually in it. The cautionary tale is, of course, to make a muslin!

Back to the drawing board. I recut the pattern and cast about for more fabric and came up with a pair of heavy cotton curtains that my sister had offloaded on me. Right, I’ll make a muslin out of one of them.

I resized the pattern and checked at every stage. The only issue was that the sleeves were now a bit short, but I couldn’t do much about that. I also think that the jacket itself is a tad short.

Anyway, I decided that it is wearable and have now worn it a few times.

I have to say that this jacket is perfect for spring weather. It layers nicely and coordinates with quite a big chunk of my wardrobe. 

Here is an earlier photograph showing the slightly too short sleeves. So all is well that ends well, except that I spent a fair chunk of my weekend producing two jackets instead of one.

Review of Casual Sweet Clothes Jacket N: If, like me, you are not good at making muslins, then do check the finished dimensions of this jacket and use these to determine the size to make. The jacket itself is a doddle to make, and I found the instructions easy to follow, but if you are short of fabric you do not need to make the braiding out of single long pieces of fabric; for the second jacket I actually joined the strips and it wasn’t at all noticeable. I know that most people would do basic things such as check the length of the sleeves and jacket, but I tend to go into auto pilot, so am writing a note for others with similar habits.  Be careful sewing the braid on. It needs to be loose enough to stretch flat round the curves, particularly the neck. If you do the braiding itself fairly tightly, it will stretch out a bit. I used bulldog clips to hold my braiding together at either end, which worked really well. Apart from that, this is a jacket to be recommended and I will make another at some point.

The details: Jacket is “N” from Sweet Casual Clothes, another wonderful Japanese book from Laurence King, made from a recycled heavy cotton curtain. In both outfits I am wearing the skirt from Vogue 1247 blogged here and here, and the tops are a Scout Tee and a Burda long sleeved top. The black necklace is a rather lovely Victorian mourning necklace. Blue shoes are XSA and the black ones are A. Bottega. The belt was thrifted.