Kwik Sew 3977 Drape Front Jacket

It is definitely winter in Utah now. Last year I had two goals for sewing: pants and button-down shirts. If you follow this blog any, you know all about my pant adventures and you can read about my favorite button-down shirt pattern here. After last year, I really need to learn how to start styling my outfits and getting more variety in my closet. I’ve tried to make several classic cardigans, but they’ve all turned out awful. I hate how cardigans look on me. Some people can pull off the look…I can’t. On a whim, I decided to try something totally new, a blanket style jacket. Because I spend a lot of time commuting with a backpack, I needed actual sleeves on my jacket. I was really inspired by these looks:

In order to achieve this look, I used Kwik Sews (K3977) pattern, because it looked easy and straightforward. I didn’t want anything fancy or complicated. As always, I did make a muslin first, because I knew I wanted my jacket to be shorter than what was pictured and I knew I would need to lengthen the arms. I had excess flannel in my stash and not enough to make PJ pants from, so I used the flannel for my muslin. The flannel worked great as a muslin fabric. I cut out a straight size L for my measurements.

In the end I shortening the jacket by 6 inches, added 2 inches on the sleeve, and made a 1/2″ forward shoulder adjustment. Going with the full length of the jacket wouldn’t be bad, I just wanted the jacket to end right at the widest part of my hips and not extend below my hips / butt.

For my real jacket, I used jacquard knit I got from Jo Ann’s. The fabric is 100% acrylic, but they had a bunch of different styles in a range of fabric content. The fabric frays in an instant, so I had to be careful sewing. I used a serger for construction and top stitched seams down for extra stability.

The pattern doesn’t call for any type of edge finishing. Depending on your fabric and style preferences, you could always encase the unfinished edges with binding.

I chose to use my serger to finish the edges and then I hemmed everything with a 1/2″ seam. The jacquard knit looks great with a folded hem and didn’t result in any weird warbling, warping, or curling. Overall, I’m super happy with the style and fit of this blanket style jacket. It looks great over a basic button-down shirt. I can tell, I need to make a couple more in boiled wool fabric for the winter.