When I visited Hong Kong last year my mom and I went fabric shopping at an old fashion Chinese department store which still stocks Chinese silk brocade and other silk fabrics for lining. I promised my mom to sew a jacket and a dress for her if she pays for the fabrics – so she did and I totally forgot about it until last week when she reminded me that Chinese New Year is coming soon (it’s 1st week of February this year).
We bought four sets of fabrics in total and they are all in bright fun colours. It’s uncommon to wear traditional Chinese brocade jackets at normal days but during Chinese New Year people do pick up the courage to wear something bright and oriental. So here’re the fabrics which I stashed away for a year.
Black brocade with magenta details contrasts with lime green lining
Red brocade with golden details and paired with ‘old gold’ colour lining
Lime green brocade with shocking pink lining
Turquoise brocade paired with orange lining – my favourite!
I paired the brocade with a contrast lining to have some extra fun and since the brocade is pure silk, the dragon / flower details are really crisp.
The brocade’s stitching details
I’m hoping to sew at least one jacket for my mom and if I work fast enough maybe another one for me. In order to save time, I’m going to use the same pattern for both garments and luckily my mom and I share the same dress size. I picked Burda 02/2012′s brocade jacket 112 / 113 which are the same pattern but with different hem length.
Burda 02/2012′s Mandarin Collar Jacket – No. 112
Burda 02/2012′s Brocade Long Jacket – No. 113
The design has limited number of pattern pieces and does not require interfacing except for the pockets and collar. I made a mock-up using the long version but with the Mandarin collars and the following changes were required:
- Shorten jacket hem
- Shorten pockets accordingly
- Taper front and back joining seams to create more ease around the hip
- Shorten sleeve hems
- Pinched a bit of fabric at the centre back seam near the waist to remove excess fabric
- Increase the height of the Mandarin collar otherwise it looked a bit half hearted…
The mockup – front view (the black lines are a combination of thread tracing and sharpie markup)
The side view – the sleeves have two piece design.The tapering at the front / back pieces joining seam is the extra ease I added.
I placed my hands on the jacket fronts to determine the pockets’ depth which are 3.5cm shorter than the pattern
Typically Mandarin Collar should be quite tall so I added 12mm to the collar height
I’ll be sewing the lime brocade / pink lining version first and if there’s any time left I’ll tackle the turquoise one as well. Although the brocade fabrics are quite substantial in weight, I’m planning to underline them with cotton flannel to give a bit of padding and warmth. Hopefully I can show you sewing in progress pictures in the next post.
The pink/black & lime combination is my favourite so I am glad you are making it first, I can’t wait to see it!
Oops, sorry, I mis-read your last line, well I can’t wait to see the pink/black version anyway
Not to worry!
Thanks! I think I will be making the lime brocade / pink lining first for my mom. That’s more her colour. Wish me luck!
Every combination you’ve got there is going to be gorgeous, can’t wait to see them made up!
Thank you!
Can’t wait to see these made up, you’ve got some lovely combinations of fabrics there.
Thank you! I tried typing comments on your award blog post but it won’t let me go through the ‘letter recognition’ security check for some reasons, I’ll try it again (I just wanted to say thank you and I want to make some trousers this year too!)
OMG this is going to be a total triumph! I love this collar and line!
Thanks! Glad u like the pattern!
These are beautiful fabrics. I used a red brocade something like the black and hot pink one in the first photo when I was in design school. I had to pay extra attention to the layout before cutting to ensure the patterns were equal on each side. The goal being not to have half a flower on one side and not continue to the other side of the front of the jacket. Set in sleeves, too, will require a little extra attention to make sure the motifs continue from the jacket front and back to the sleeves.
Thanks for the tips! Yes I’ll try my best to match the brocade details!
Gorgeous fabrics! I’m looking forward to seeing these made up.
Thank you!
Yes beautiful fabrics difficult to pick a favourite, whatever you pick will no doubt be fabulous, cannot wait to see!
Thanks! I’ll try my best!
These will be gorgeous! Looking forward to watching your progress!
Hi I was on burdastyle web site and saw your beautiful coat ffrom 08/2009. You had mentioned that the pattern could be located on the other burda website.help I could not find it…thanks your coat made me want one soooo badly.
Hello Tanya, sorry for the late reply. In Burda’s Classic issue (from memory it was issued in November last year), there’s a similar swing coat pattern with set in sleeves design. It’s available on Burda’s German website.
http://www.burdastyle.de/burda-style/heft-katalog/jacke-und-mantel-classic-collection_pid_680_8468.html
I can’t read German but google translate should help if you want to order the pattern. Alternatively you can try eBay for a second hand issue of the magazine. Hope it helps!
Thanks for helping me find a similar pattern.
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Oh wow and you forgot you had such gorgeousness in the house? Sigh – if only my memory worked like that
.
I had the at the bottom of my very large fabric stash! The fact that I need to sew for my mom helped me to ‘forget’ about it as well!
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