I think by now that my love for the Pattern Union Cora blouse is well established, so I really wanted to create a jacket hack from it. This is not the first time I’ve taken a top and created a jacket or cardigan (think Naughty Bobbins Presto Popover), but this time I had Sarah’s help which makes it a much more polished finished product. (please comment if you think she should add this to her patterns as a Cora add-on!).

This would be a pretty simple hack just by cutting the front with sufficient seam allowance for a zip and fiddling with the collar a bit, but we added welt pockets and a nifty little pleat detail at the bottom of the back.

Obviously an open ended zip was used and I bound the edges to make it neater where the jacket falls open, particularly at the top.

I also ran a piece of tape along the collar seam to keep things neat. Finished with a Kylie and the Machine label, of course!

The collar, cuffs and bottom band are all in black knit. The jacket itself is made from some beautiful checked wool that Sarah bought in a local auction.

I used the two piece sleeve from the Japanese Cora.   My favourite components, and perhaps the elements that lift the jacket from being basic, are the welt pockets. I’m not a fan of inseam pockets and I didn’t want patch pockets, so I love these welt pockets, which are really cleverly designed. Note how well this jacket goes with my suede skirt made in 2013 ago from scraps donated to my stash.

This jacket goes with so many things in my wardrobe. My black jeans,

My top made from Missoni and mustard merino scraps,

Friday Pattern Company Joan trousers, hacked to fit me and made from a tweed patterned Ponte.

It also goes perfectly with some corduroy trousers I’ve made from the same pattern as above. The stretch corduroy came from a shop in New York, bought about three years ago.

It can be dressed up and down brilliantly. Here is a little slide show of it with a simple leather skirt I made in 2012. This is what I wore for Tom’s celebratory 30th birthday dinner. 

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Now I have this pattern, I can feel a recycled denim one coming on. 

This post has taken ages to write. Not only because I kept wearing the jacket and wanted to show all the different ways I’ve styled it, but because WordPress have created a new block editor that has been causing me problems. I’m not sure who the creators are, but it’s truly awful and completely unintuitive. I battled along with it for ages, but have given up and gone back to the classic editor, but even then they’ve removed some of my favourite features such as in post photo editing. So annoying. I see that there are lots of complaints on the web, so it’s not just me, thankfully!