Bye bye winter! The last of my winter sewing for the year.

As a last hurrah before things really heat up down under, I made a warm, winter outfit consisting of a jacket, jeans and long-sleeved top.

Oh, and meet Bubbles! He is a two year old toy poodle and we are looking after him for a month. This was my compromise to (temporarily) appease my nine year old, who wants a second dog. We don't even know the owners, they were strangers who advertised for a dog-sitter on the online classifieds. The things I agree to!

Anyway, back to the jacket. I found this remnant of fabric at Knitwit for $10 (usually $25.95/m). There was a metre, but it was unravelling a bit, hence the low price. It was described as 'an exclusive import from Italy...not a knit, not even a normal woven fabric but it has loads of Italian style; some would even say Missoni style.' I was sold. It is beautiful.

As recommended by Knitwit, I used dark interfacing to strengthen the delicate weave. This fabric is not machine washable, so we'll have to see how it goes. I have never been to a drycleaners, preferring to risk all in the washing machine!

I wanted a simple, boxy style to use up all the scrummy fabric and not have to worry about matching the pattern too much. I flicked through my Burdastyle magazines and chose jacket 122 from the February 2015 issue. 

Burdastyle 02/2015 #122

I had enough fabric for the back and fronts of the jacket, omitting the back vent and cutting the back on the fold. For the sleeves and collar I used some black wool remnants from Potters Textiles. The pattern is unlined, so I drafted a collar, front facing and lining to cover up that interfacing. The lining was silk dupion from the stash.

Pattern matching was impossible at the sides due to fabric restrictions, but I'm still very happy with this as a simple throw-on 'Missoni' jacket. 

I'm just trying to decide if it needs a front button closure.

The next part of the outfit is the jeans. No prizes for guessing that I made my favourite Jamie jeans by Named Clothing yet again!

This time I used a medium blue denim with minimal stretch from Spotlight. I topstitched with bronzey yellow topstitching thread.

There's not much more to say about these jeans as I've said it all before. I love them and have worn them lots already.

The last part of the outfit is this top. Another Presto! Popover Top by SavageCoco. I love this pattern. This one was made using another Knitwit remnant for the front and purple knit fabric from the stash for the back and sleeves.

The Knitwit remnant was a panel print and had two repeats. I placed the pattern in such a way that each front was cut from one panel repeat. The result was a replica of the whole panel right across the front with the centre front seamline being almost impossible to see. This is a bit difficult to describe, but if you've made this top you will get what I mean. Maybe!

I like the effect this gives with the print extending up the neckline. The other benefit was that the fabric was a bit sheer, so this pattern, with its double layer front, was perfect.

The clingy purple knit gives a great fit at the back.

So there we are, a top, jeans and a jacket. OK, bye winter!