Smitten! – Liviality

Smitten Cropped Jacket – Pattern Emporium

Never has a pattern been more accurately named. Smitten is right!
I dare you to make one and not fall in love with it 😀

As usual, Kate brings us a pattern with an easy fit, super clear instructions, and a ton of extra info to make sewing this piece a total breeze. If you haven’t tried Pattern Emporium patterns yet, they seriously have one of the more complete and easy-to-follow instructions out there.

If I make multiples of a pattern I usually try to make as many different options as I can because I love variety and I also like to show you, my sewing peeps, all the possibilities. BUT this time was different.

I’m obsessed with the options I chose for my first jacket and I’m pretty sure I’ll stick to those f.o.r.e.v.e.r! lol

ULTRA CROPPED
ELASTICATED HEM BAND
FULL SLEEVE WITH GATHERED CUFF

I may vary the pocket options, but that’s pretty much it. Don’t get me wrong, all the options are great as well, but these just hit the spot for me. 😉

Life has been busy and I haven’t been having as much sewing time as I’d like, but I still managed to make 2 Smittens. One as per pattern and one hacked.

01 – As per pattern

size 12
very lightweight cotton
no pockets
no buttons (I love the clean look of it and would never wear it closed anyways)

The only thing non-pattern I added was the htv floral pocket. So dainty and cute!

I used the Pocket Flowers SVG pack from my Design Bundles shop. If you craft and would like to check it out, it would be highly appreciated <3

This lightweight cropped jacket will be so perfect for spring and summer. Just enough coverage for an unexpected chilly wind that we oh-so-often get here.

I paired the jacket with my hacked Catalina wrap and mini-length Willow, both from Made for Mermaids, and LOVE the outfit. It’s telling me I need to book a week in Santorini… haha

02 – HACKED: hood and knit sleeves

size 12
denim weight cotton (bodice)
french terry (sleeves)
patch pockets + pocket flaps

As soon as I finished the white jacket I knew I had to make a sportier one with a hood. It’s such a fun silhouette!

Aside from the hood, the jacket is constructed as per pattern, even the knit sleeves.
Simply follow all the steps of the jacket, except the ones involving the collar.

HOOD

I used the hood pattern piece from the Unwind, another staple pattern from PE.
The pattern pieces are not a straight fit so I had to do some adjusting to the hood to be able to sew it to the jacket. Here’s an illustration of what I did:

The hood piece is larger than the jacket neckline so I measured the neckline and reduced the hood so they’d match 1:1 (don’t forget seam allowances).

The Unwind hood is a single layer and has a fold-over edge. As I wanted mine to be lined I eliminated that part of the pattern piece before measuring it.
After that, the difference between my neckline and hood was about 1.5″, so I just drew a line from the back of the hood down to the seam edge bringing it in by that amount.

And that left me with the final hood piece. 😉

The reason I opted to line the hood is that you can see the seam when wearing the jacket open, and I thought it’d look neater this way.

Here’s a summary of the steps I took to sew it to the jacket:

sew a lined hood as per usual;
iron a memory seam (wrong sides together) on the lining where it attaches to the jacket;
with right sides together sewed the main hood to the jacket, leaving the lining “hanging”;
flip it all into position and using the folded edge of the lining (the memory seam made previously) topstitch the lining to the jacket, enclosing the seam.

If you’d rather have your hood unlined, you can also use bias or twill tape to hide the seam.

That’s it! It’s a simple and easy mod to change up the look of your jacket and make it even more versatile.