Sew In Tune Winter 2014

 Sew In Tune Winter 2014 is here! It's an online sewing series where you sew up an outfit inspired by a tune. The hostesses are Melissa from Melly Sews and Stacey from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy! All this week there are two Sew In Tune posts per day, so check out their blogs to see them all.

 Today it is my turn to play and the song I picked was Waterloo by ABBA.
More specifically about my inspiration:

• Waterloo battle: military inspired jacket
• Napoleon was from France: the jacket sewing pattern I used is from France
• The ABBA music group is from Sweden: Swedish flag (blue with a gold Scandinavian cross)

 For my son, Mr. J, I created 3 pieces: a pair of yellow trousers, a blue jacket, and a white long sleeve t-shirt and here are the project details...

 Yellow Trousers
Pattern: Oliver+S Art Museum Trousers with this zipper fly tutorial
Fabric: yellow cotton twill
Size: 7 with 9/10 length
Sewing notes: My first zipper fly! I have been sewing up a ton of little girl dresses these past few years, but only a handful of pants. I am so happy I tackled the zipper fly. I'm so pleased with how well it went and with the result that I hope to sew zipper flies on all pants in the future.

 Blue jacket
Pattern: Oberweiden (paper pattern in French, comes in sizes 6-12 years)
Fabrics:
Jacket: blue cotton twill
Lining: Kona cotton in blue and gold
Size: 10 years
Sewing notes: This jacket is "demi saison," so it does not close (I am really thankful I didn't have to sew all those button holes, especially because I added 6 buttons instead of the suggested 4). The sewing went pretty well as I knew enough French to get by and there are easy to follow drawings. I'm not a huge fan of putting in sleeves, but these went in extremely easily.
For the lining of this jacket I was inspired by the Swedish flag which is blue with a gold Scandinavian cross. It was really quite easy to add the gold Scandinavian cross. First I cut out the blue lining fabric. Second, I took 2 inch strips of gold fabric, folded under .5 inch on each side, then topstitched them onto the blue lining fabric.
I really like the details on this jacket and am thrilled that it is gender neutral, so hopefully I'll get more use (and therefore my money's worth) out of it.

 White long sleeve t-shirt
Pattern: Made by Rae flashback skinny tee for big kids, comes in sizes 6-14
Fabric: I bought an adult size t-shirt from the clearance rack, so I used an existing t-shirt to make a smaller one, using the original hems, cuffs, and neckline ribbing, like in this video.

 If you would like to sew along you can add your Sew In Tune creations to the flickr group.

Many thanks to Melissa and Stacey for the invitation to participate in the series.

PS I created a challenge for myself. I want to complete the following 4 sewing projects before the Great British Sewing Bee Season 2 airs in spring 2014.
These are from the Great British Sewing Bee Season 1 and they are the 'following a pattern' challenges from all 4 episodes:

1. A-line skirt with invisible zip
2. Trousers with zip fly
3. Summer dress with French seams, rows of shearing elastic, and rouleau loop straps
4. Button shirt with collar stand

So with finishing these yellow trousers I have crossed 'Trousers with zip fly' off the list and have 3 more challenges to complete in order to reach my goal.