Last year I made the Jalie 2795 hooded jacket for my niece. I always intended to make one for me too. Jalie patterns seem to often include all sizes both child and adult in the same envelope. The differences between the sizes also seem small. This does make it a little difficult tracing the pattern sometimes, particularly in the region of the little triangles that mark the line-up points on the pattern pieces. I actually made mistakes in two of my pattern pieces, although I managed to use the pieces since I hadn't cut off the stitching line, and was using a completely un-ravelly fabric.
This jacket is made in a "lightweight" windpro bought from Mill Direct Textiles. It is a bit hit and miss buying from them - the website descriptions within each fabric type are opaque and the colours decidely approximate. However the quality is generally good, and the fabric type very clearly described making it a good shop for fabric meant for technical wear. Windpro is fleece that is wind resistant. It is not windproof, but cuts out a lot more wind than standard fleece. This makes it much more suitable for an outlayer such as this hoody. This particular version has a hard outer and fleecy inner, a fact that was not apparent to me from the description on the website, however, this makes it even more suitable for an outer layer. The fabric did indeed feel quite lightweight before the jacket was made, and I was concerned it would be too thin, but it is fine now it is sewn up. I envisage this is a spring/autumn weight jacket. In fact I have already started wearing it as an outer layer and so far it has been very successful, if the fact that James keeps asking "aren't you cold?" when we're standing on breezy railway platforms is anything to go by.Construction was identical to the fleece made for my niece. On the whole I think I did a better job - easier second time around, but I did make one mistake, which was sewing the collar piece on upside down, sewing the shorter rather than longer edge onto the neckline. It was too late to rip by the time I realised, so I trimmed the sides of the piece so that it fitted onto the hood properly. However, by sewing the shorter piece to the neckline I had of course stretched it, which is, I think why there are draglines in the collar.
I am not so sure that the design at the front with the chest-level seam is particularly flattering, but the pockets, created by the seam, are certainly useful.
In Jalie sizes, my chest measurement places me two to three sizes above my waist and hip measurements. But in this case I didn't think I wanted the jacket to be waist or hip-hugging so I cut the correct size for my chest. I basted all the body seams together and tried it on and then decided to sew about 1mm outside the stitching line for the chest area and about 1mm inside for waist-hip. With all the seams on this garment that's at least 6mm reduction in total. I suppose I could have taken more off the waist-hip area, but the finished garment feels OK. Judging from the pattern pictrures, the pattern is designed to have rather long sleeves with cuffs down to the thumb joint. I reduced the length by sewing a bigger seam allowance at the cuff, so that they came down to this point on me. This long sleeve length makes the jacket excellent for cycling.
