When Liz Haywood showed a jacket that she had published in the Jaanese magazine, Cotton Time, I knew I needed it in my wardrobe. I could only find the magazine on Amazon Japan, which is a bit upsetting, but I bought it anyway.

It’s a lovely magazine and there are several things in it that I am looking forward to making. It’s pretty easy to read, especially with online translation tools, but the photographs are very self explanatory.

I think I spent the most amount of time choosing fabric. I hate choosing pieces that are too big, and I have a piece of bright green wool which is too short, although I might do some cutting and pasting to make it work.

I always consider the first garment as a practice piece so chose a piece of my mother’s sofa fabric, which I had dyed. It was almost the exact size I needed. I had a surplus strip, which was immediately commandeered by youngest son. He sat and sewed a straight line on it, announcing that he would be elite at sewing. He probably would be too!

It’s a super quick make, and I took this fit photo and sent it to Liz, commenting that the sleeves might be a bit long for me.

she told me that I needed a deeper hem – oops, I had missed that one instruction!

I unpicked the hem and and pleats and redid the bottom of the sleeves. So much better, and I have to say that I love the sleeves, the tucks really elevate them.

I’ve worn this jacket a couple of times as the weather warms up: here with my sofa stokx square pants, which of course is the same fabric, just in the original colour.

I was excited to find daffodils.

With my orange square pants.

I notice a certain amount of bunching around the shoulders, which I can adjust to make it sit smoothly, but to be honest, I probably won’t remember to do this too often.

The back had the same issue.

I have had this happen to me before and resolve the problem by taking a tuck at the armholes front and back. It does look like I have raglan sleeves but it’s a viable solution to the problem.

It’s hard to see here, but I’ve hand stitched in tucks and it is a lot better. This is a different day. Orange trousers and orange top.

This is after I got home and stitched the tucks with the machine. Not sure what’s going on with my hair, but I decided to leave it in the interests of authenticity and my own amusement.

And here i am showing it seated with my friend Suzanne. I made no effort to arrange it and I think I’ve got the shoulders about right. The light was terrible, hence the poor photo.

A better shot, waiting for the train to take me to visit my son. Wearing my Ralph Pink Coco trousers made from brown linen. which I love and which I think go brilliantly with the jacket.

Later edit to show the heart I sewed on to promote women’s heart health

and to show my snap, which is covered in silk and is a holiday souvenir from, well, somewhere! I might need to change the thread to black…

Miss G is dressed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Her mother commented that she just needed the long gloves to complete the outfit, and I managed to find a pair of my mother’s that I had squirrelled away. She was thrilled. I found a pink pair as well. Double delight!