When Sewing Goes Wrong

It happens to all of us once and a while, for one reason or another a project just doesn't work out. Perhaps you thought you had fixed fitting issues and it wasn't enough, maybe it was the wrong fabric choice after all, perhaps the machine decided to eat part of the skirt while you were putting in the zipper...sometimes, sewing just goes wrong.

It always stings when sewing projects fail. You have spent money on the fabric of course, but the time is the real loss! All of that time laying everything out, cutting it out, sewing it together, and having nothing to show for it in the end!

What I'm saying is, my brown jacket isn't working! I got the whole thing mostly together and I am really just not happy with how it looks/fits. I had modified the same pattern I had used for my green vest (seen here), making some minor adjustments for fit and adding short cuffed sleeves. Unfortunately, the main problems I had with the vest are still present in the new jacket. The slope of the shoulder...the entire upper back/shoulder area in general really, is just off. I shouldn't have used the vest pattern as a starting point, but I didn't want to have to make a muslin for this jacket. Which is just silly, it's a jacket! Jackets = tailoring, which means I definitely should have made a muslin!

Anyway...What this means is, I have a new plan for making a coordinating top/jacket-ish thing to match my brown skirt. I have some of the khaki green twill left over from the green vest and I will be combining that with the left over brown twill into a raglan sleeved 1940's inspired top. The new design is less a jacket and more in line with the sorta two-pieced dresses from the 1940's like those below.

So I have a new solution for my jacket problem for now. I still want to work out a jacket/blazer pattern for the future, but I obviously need to devote more time to the patterning process. It just goes to show, no matter how long you have been sewing, some projects just are not meant to be!

Have you experienced sewing gone wrong? What has been your biggest sewing disappointment?