Dr. Bunkins' Apothecary: mom's christmas jacket!

i've been wanting to test out butterick 5392 for quite a while now. i was planning on making the magenta bell-sleeved jacket without the bows at the waist for mom for christmas, with leftovers of the teal wool that i used to make the scalloped skirt a couple of years ago. however, there was not enough of this teal wool.

before shirley moved to oregon, she gifted me maybe 5 yards of this grey wool knit sweater material... i had planned to make myself the same jacket with this grey wool, and since there was SO much, i figured why not test the pattern out on mom anyway, since she's built more normally than i am. so, one wool sweater jacket got started! here are the outside front panels!

this wool was very easy to work with. mom found me a bunch of ball-point needles, perfect for working with knits. the wool was not all that stretchy, but was rather scratchy, so i used grey cotton jersey for the lining (also from shirley! she's so sweet! she gave me maybe 10 yards!).

here's the jacket before the sleeve installation. it sewed up so well!

and around back:

before i finished up the jacket, i decided to try it on for fit. yeah, this look definitely did not work for me. i really don't look normal in poofy sleeves (the only one i've ever made for myself is that black swiss dot blouse from "twinkle sews"), and the shoulders were about 1.5 to 2 inches too wide each! also, the sleeves were so voluminous that my little chopstick arms looked so silly sticking out from them. i'm going to opt for the purple version's style with the 3 quarter-length regular sleeves when i make it for myself, also in this grey wool... one day.

here's the final product! the button is from one of my colleagues who gifted me all her late mom's sewing goods from her days as a professional seamstress! the collection is divine; so many wooden spools of vibrant threads and boxes of vintage buttons! originally i wanted to use a bolder button on the jacket since there is only one. however, with the loud sleeves, i decided to go for a subtler large metal button, so as not to detract from the jacket's shape.