Sewing couture “Chanel RTW FW18 inspired jacket” – Fabrics

Of course, the first thought in my head was screaming to me “Linton tweeds! LINTON TWEEDS!” Well, there are astonishing fabrics at Linton’s! So many choices, textures, colors… oh my! The truth is the prices were out of my range. This jacket alone will need a least 3 meters of main fabric. I considered saving money for Linton’s, in case I couldn’t find anything else.

Main fabric

I went checking all the fabric shops I knew for anything to match my vision and my wallet. How lucky I was when after less than 30 minutes I bumped into the sale category in telas.es and I saw it! An amazing grey, with black and white threads all over it, with amazing texture, fiber composition of something poly plus wool and cotton…and at only 6 euros per meter…

Of course, I was doubting, what if the quality was not at all what I was looking for, maybe I need to save money for better quality?

Well, I am so glad that in the end I have trusted my guts and bought that amazing fabric! I think I got 3,5 meters at only 6 euros/meter. 

The thing is that maybe a year and a half ago at that moment I already bought a boucle tweed from telas.es at a very low price, something like 3 euros/meter, and I made a jacket for my hubby! The fabric was amazing and resisted so much wear that I could not believe how cheap I got and how well-looking it was without any wear and tear after 1,5 years of being one of the most worn jackets in his wardrobe. (Do not get me wrong, I also happened to buy some very low-quality fabrics from telas.es, I just had a stroke of extreme luck with tweeds)

So, my pure trust in my newly bought fabric for my jacket was growing constantly! When it arrived all the doubts were cleared!).

Lining fabric

The lining… I was going for silk. Somewhere in all those books, I read that silk dupioni can be a very nice option for the lining for the tweed cardigan jacket. I needed a silky feel and very stable fabric for the quilting.

I got my white dupioni from Telas.es in white color (which I wish was a little bit heavier, less transparent) to match my main fabric. I think it came out to be 3 meters with 16 euros/meter.

Zippers

As I have mentioned before I had no idea where I would be able to find a long zipper, long enough to get to my knees at least.

I got this black zipper with silver teeth of 120cm at Amazon. Could not find anything longer than that at that time.

I also got two small plastic teeth zippers for the pockets. As the jacket was planned to be a winter jacket I did not want to touch the metal teeth with my hands.

All three zippers are YKK. After bad experiences with broken zipper in my newly sewn jeans during traveling (16 hours of train!) I always get the best quality zippers out there. It is better to pay slightly more than the look and feel of a disgrace of a broken zipper.

From Claire Shaeffer’s books, I got that I needed to quilt the main tweed fabric to the lining. Here I decided to add something that I do not know if it is somehow practiced in haute couture, or cardigan jackets at all.

I wanted a winter jacket, warm enough for Barcelona winter to wear over a T-shirt. It led me to the thought that maybe I could put some wadding between the main fabric and the lining.

I found Poly-down by Hobbs at Amazon (I chose this one because of reading N amount of quilting blogs, thank you SO MUCH for sharing!!!) I have read that this poly-down is machine washable!!!

Of course, I wanted to have an all natural fiber jacket, no poly, or at least a very little tiny amount, so I did think of getting a natural wadding (cotton or wool), but then I had to treat it before quilting it in case of cotton, and the wool wadding I would not be able to wash in the washing machine…

Did I mention that I wanted this couture jacket to be fully machine washable? lol! YES! I washed that tweed and that silk dupuoni in the washing machine before any cutting. It washed perfectly! I also was lucky to have an amazing washing machine with a fantastic cycle for delicate clothing.

Other details

The jacket was supposed to have fringe trimming, which I knew I was going to make out of the main fabric.

The jacket was supposed to have a hood, the hood needs some kind of cord, which I was looking for online, but everything I saw was too sporty. I decide to opt out of any too sporty details, any metals around the cord, and out as well of any metal cord endings.

I had about 6 meters of silk organza which I got from LaFab Tessuti for a very good price and I am planning to use this organza for any reinforcing like interfacing or interlining where it will be needed.