Saturday, June 12, 2021

Drama and pockets

Today's Summer Film Fest, since the cold rainy weather needed some help, featured the Ang Lee, Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility, and it was even better than I remembered. Filled with brilliant touches, tiny gestures that meant everything, great acting.

If you've seen it you know. If you haven't, I'd recommend it.

Then, and this is related, it really is, on the endless subject of pockets and why more is better, I suddenly had this thought. 

To be exact, in the middle of watching a moving and engrossing scene in Sense and Sensibility, high drama, where Elinor is finally having her breakdown of relief, on finding maybe she does have a future, despite all.

Try as I will, to quote a Heyer heroine, I cannot be romantic.

Anyway I was wearing a favorite linen jacket once a shirt jacket, which I'd altered years ago. I'd cut off the cuffs and hemmed the sleeves to make elbow length roll ups. I love it but today I wished it had at least one pocket. 

And I was watching the movie on the little TV right next to the supply closet where the scrap crate is. I expect my brain was working on this while I thought I was getting into Austen.

Later the thought about how to have matching pockets took shape. As you see.



I remembered the cut-off cuffs. Being quality linen, I expected to find them preserved,  in the scrap crate. And did. Readymade pockets. With pleat detail, machined pocket top.


So later, while I listened to an Angela Thirkell (August Folly) I tried one. Cut it open, stitched it around, attached it, steam pressed the lot.

 
See the tiny arrowhead point below the hemline? Posh detail.


And it looks pretty sharp, as well as being deep enough to put things in without having them fly out. The tiny arrowhead sticking below the hemline? I love that detail. It's the button placket from the cuff. And there are pleats on the back, at the yoke, that echo the pleats on the pocket.

I may not put a second pocket on, one may be enough, but I'll wear it and decide. 

This linen is beautiful to stitch through, needle just glides.

You may have noticed the skirt hasn't progressed far. That's because a high thread count cotton mix, with a finish designed to withstand wear, is difficult to push a needle through for more than a few minutes. It will get there, but I can't clickety click along with the seams.

Meanwhile this linen jacket which I got for a couple of dollars at the thriftie about 15 years ago, designer brand, continues to earn its keep.

12 comments:

  1. nice job on the jacket. pockets are essential for me since I don't carry a purse. any clothing purchased is based on how big and deep the pockets are which in women's clothing is a challenge.

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    1. That's how I end up attaching pockets. I'm wearing this now, ready to go walking. Phone fits across the bottom, works fine, and can't fall out if I bend to look at something growing underfoot. I have a couple more jax like this, and I expect I kept the cuffs. I may do more. It really looks designer!

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  2. Great job on the pocket. The movie with Emma Thompson is exceptional.

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  3. Beautiful work there
    I'd go for a second pocket for balance.

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  4. My father was an avid photographer, with a lot of add on equipment. I once made him his "indispensable shirt". It was a corduroy jacket with extra pockets that buttoned. I bought the jacket, removed one of its pockets for a pattern for the four extra pockets I cut from corduroy from the "scrap bucket". So his jacket wound up with six pockets marching down and he put extra lenses, brushes, filters in them, instead of carrying them in a separate satchel. Pockets are so useful.

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    1. Great. Photographers always look like pack mules. And naturalists. They need a lot of gear.

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  5. I've never understood the manufacturers who make garments without pockets. Or if they do, they make them so teeny that they're virtually useless.

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  6. Looks good. It makes me crazy that so much of women's clothing doesn't come with useful pockets!

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