I Love Lucy Jacket

I just had the most FUN creating this jacket for a very special friend who loves – LUCY!

And, oh my – am I now spoiled with having TWO sewing machines!  I kept black thread on my old, trusty Pfaff 7550 for basic construction (love that Dual Feed!), and used my new BROTHER Quattro 3 for the decorative/monofilament stitching!  I couldn’t believe how easily it handled the Wonder Thread – YLI Monofilament!  I selected this cross-wound thread instead of a parallel wound spool (Superior Mono-Poly) because my thread rides horizontally on this machine.  I had NO trouble what-so-ever winding a bobbin with the thread – NOR even using the needle threader or cutter on this machine – AWESOME!  The only thing I found was that since the thread is so slippery, that once I used the thread cutter, I needed to pull some extra needle thread out so that it didn’t UN-thread again!  Sew……YEP, I’m a 2 machine sewer now – at least for my decorative, art-t0-wear, and I’m confident I’ll save time by not having to change thread so often, as I really do NOT like to construct with monofilament thread.

I started with an I Love Lucy t-shirt I got on eBay for about $10.00.  Then I scrounged in my  black knits and found:

1. a sheer knit black jacket I’d bought just for the fabric

2. a teeny black/white stripe

3. a lacey black fabric with a wonderful selvage

4. a basic reversible (though I didn’t utilize the lighter side)

The edge at the neckline and the bottom and center front is actually ALL of the black stretchy mesh jacket ‘fabric’ – all raw edge, except for the center fronts – for which I utilized both sleeves, folded in half so the fold is at the center front – and even the angle of the sleeve cap became the lowermost hem edge! The neckline edge at the back neck had to be the lacy knit – as I didn’t have enough length of the black mesh. I used the black/white stripe with raw edges – cut usually at about 5/8″ wide to stitch over top of where one fabric joined the other.  I found it didn’t roll unless I pulled it – and then when I pulled it, it would make the surface to which I stitched it pucker up – so that

didn’t work.  Instead, I ‘coaxed’ it to roll with my steam iron.  It kinda did and kinda didn’t roll, actually – so fine – it is what it is.

It became obvious real quick that if I wanted to have the ‘floppy front’ that the inside of the jacket would be exposed, therefore I needed to add fabrics inside as well as a ‘lining’.  That’s when I dug out the black lacy knit.  See below how I cut it to make use of the wonderful pointy selvage.  Most of this piecing is done with monofilament thread in the needle and bobbin, so the stitching is really really invisible on the outside, through the face.  I also did then stitch the two layers together – around Lucy’s face, eyebrows, and lips – just for fun!

I really ‘eeked’ out the fabric from the T-shirt – including the hem and sleeves.  NONE went to waste.  I loved the punch of the red hearts too – so tried to be strategic in where they ‘landed’.

The back of this jacket pattern had an upside-down ‘U” in it – which I did, but I don’t really see any reason for it.  I tried to accent it with ties of the stripe fabric.

Swingy jacket back. Hemline documentation printing is featured on the right shoulder.Left sleeve detail – using the hemline of the T-shirt – printing again…

I feel that watching Marcy Tilton ‘do’ her Tshirts with lots of striped fabric, and also lots of different fabrics combined definitely ‘gave me permission’ to make this pretty funky jacket!

I must admit that my friend will have to gently hand-wash it in cold water, as I was a ‘bad girl’ and in my creative ‘buzz’, certainly didn’t want to stop and wash things!!!

There was even a small hole in Lucy’s face – that I mended with a patch of fusible on the back.

Lastly, here is another way to ‘wear’ this jacket – each with ‘Lucy’ quite a bit more visible!

Lucy Jacket – worn ‘buttoned closed’.