Donna Karan Vogue 1440

I literally gasped when I saw how lovely this pattern from Vogue's spring collection was!  Look at the lines, look at the details, look at the fabric!  I had to have it and as soon as it went on sale at BVM, I struck!  So in case you are wondering about it, here are the deets: Unlined jacket has fringe, shoulder pads, draped front extending into back collar, wrong side shows, seam detail, no side or shoulder seams, two-piece sleeves, mock band on upper sleeve and continuous bias for piping and finished seams.  Wow, right?  The jacket is listed as semi-fitted and I think it fits that way as a finished garment.  This is listed as Average and it isn't for the faint of heart!  It is a LOT of work, but I enjoyed every minute of putting it together!

This calls for lightweight tweed or cotton blends, and the contrast in Crepe de Chine, or Charmeuse. I used a wool blend and a purchased cotton piping, which may explain why my jacket doesn't drape quite as nice as the model's.


Believe it or not, I made a muslin and am so glad I did!  There really isn't any way to fit this unless you make a muslin based on the way the seams are created.  A also decided not to make my own bias tape simply cause I hated the idea of trying to get slipper fabric behave for all those seams!  I may be a patient sewer, but I am not that patient!

 I also wanted a high contrast with the navy and white fabric I found on sale at Hancock's for a mere $4 a yard!  It had been $24/yard!  I had no idea since it was in the area where the $24 buck a yard stuff was but there was a sign that had 40% off.  I am not math mathematician but even without a calculator, I know that this does not work out to 40% off!  What a happy surprise!

Right away, you start encasing seams with the bias binding but make sure you wait for the directions to tell you to do so!  Otherwise your intersecting seams will be a disaster and not nice and neatly finished.  The back, just by itself, has eight pieces!  All of them have piping along with the bias binding.  Definitely a labor of love, or pure unadulterated insanity!    I will admit, I didn't bind all the seams as you can see in my photo above.

Once you get to the point where you attach the collar, you might think you are in the clear for putting this together, meaning that perhaps the process will speed up a bit, but nope!  Fringing the edges took me more than an hour, but it was really the icing on the cake, if you catch my drift.

The instructions are very good and I found the illustrations easy to follow and they made sense to me!  Normally, I make an FBA, but I didn't think it was necessary for this.  I did make my usual 1/2" swayback adjustment and that's it!  I did find the sleeves a little long and yes, I know they fold under a LOT for the hem but still!  If you are running short on fabric, you could easily cut off a good three or four inches and still have enough for a decent hem.

One of the main features of this jacket is the trim and to make sure it is up to Donna's standards, make sure the trim on the garment right side and wrong side line up perfectly or it will look silly. This is a multi-step process so here it is in a nutshell:
1.  Attach the contrast binding to the fringe pieces
2.  With wrong sides together (fringe and garment) using the placement lines on the garment, attach the binding edge to this line and stitch
3.  Using the stitching line you just completed, line up the edge of the grosgrain ribbon and stitch down both sides to secure it
Ta-Da!  Then fringe to your hearts content!

I do think I need to tweak the back for some additional fitting issues, but all in all, I'm happy!

I love this, it is different, feels very RTW but my family isn't impressed.  They found it rather frumpy, but whatever...I'll still wear it with pride!


Thanks for reading!
Sue