A sartorial epic

Lately, I've been feeling a bit distracted, a little thin-spread. So, according to my usual coping mechanism when I'm feeling that way, I've been tying up some loose ends. On Sunday I finished my book; yesterday I finished a pair of socks (currently blocking); and Monday I finished this:

My guess is that few Family Trunk Project readers have followed the saga of this jacket from the beginning. It starts way back here, in the 300-square-foot apartment that David and I used to share, and was more recently continued here, but now it's finally done...sort of.

The "sort of" is because this is the top half of a suit (Vogue 2870, for those playing along at home), and the skirt is still far from done. It feels great to have the jacket complete at last, though, after working on it sporadically for almost two years!

In retrospect, doesn't it always seem like the hangups that cause projects to sit on the shelf for months turn out to be really silly and quick to fix? At least in comparison to your expectations? That's definitely how the last finishing step of this jacket was for me. I remembered the bottom edge of the lining as fitting very poorly into the shell; I remembered hours of pinning and re-pinning, all ending in frustration. Coming back to it, I can't understand my confusion. It says right in the directions, after all, "Lining will form a pleat at bottom edge for wearing ease," and once I let it do that, everything was smooth sailing. Well, smooth sailing plus lots and lots of slip-stitching. And then I had a silk-lined jacket!

Which, as you can see, is very exciting to me.

There are plenty of details to love here; I adore the cute trimmed pockets (also lined!), and the row of buttons along the sleeve cuffs, not to mention the curved lines of the bottom fronts:

The unusual v-shape of buttons made me a tad nervous. David and I had to work hard to find buttons that toned down the military leanings of the jacket; just imagine it with brass buttons and you'll see what I mean. But I think these swirly leather ones avert that danger pretty well. (Not that there's anything wrong with military-inspired civilian dress; it's just not my personal cup of tea.)

It's lovely to wear - I'm lucky that I didn't undergo any radical shape-shifting in the two-year interval between my alterations to the pattern two years ago, and the jacket's completion yesterday. And really, it's that luscious silk lining again. It makes me want to wear the jacket with shirtsleeves everywhere I go! Look how happy I am:

Hopefully this streak of loose-end-tying will continue, and apply itself to things like, oh, completion of the Warren Johnson essay (all I have left on this pattern!), and some tricky charting I've been putting off. Until then, at least I'm outfitted to procrastinate in style.