Marcy Tilton Jacket (Vogue) 8709 ...

This is just a great jacket. 

Well, my first Marcy Tilton garment!!!.

And how brilliant it was to sew! An absolute delight from start to finish. Having prowled over the reviews from such talented sewers on Pattern Review in detail, I had the urge to try this jacket for myself. I am always on the look-out for clothing that is just that little bit different, creative without being bizarre. And this certainly fitted the bill. Though I must wonder why I wished to whip-up a jacket in the sub-tropics of Brisbane. Our winters definitely don’t require such a high neck jacket, but I sooooo wished to try it.

So, Vogue 8709 was to become my first item ever reviewed, and hopefully not my last. Even though my sewing skills are average, it is still daunting to have your finished garments on display to so many talented sewers around the world. Hence the photos taken on my sewing dummy (whom I must name one day), and not modeled at this stage by myself. One step at a time…

Back to the jacket.
Fabric used is a beautiful feeling cotton with a self check -

*Carolyn.S, from PatternReview suggested that the fabric may be a ripstop cotton. On further investigation I would have to agree with her. The fabric definitely has all the characteristics of ripstop – thick reinforced threads are interwoven at regular intervals in a crosshatch pattern. The intervals are typically 5 to 8mm. Ripstop fabric is thin and lightweight with a 3-dimensional structure due to the thicker threads being interwoven in the thinner cloth. So thank you, Carolyn.S, for posting this question, and giving me a little more understanding of my fabric.

After reading other reviews and taking my measurements I settled on making a size 14. There appeared to be plenty of ease still at this size and the jacket did look as if it would have ample room under the arms and across the chest area. Nothing worse than a ‘too tight’ jacket. And I am more than impressed with the look of the finished garment.
I am one to finish all parts of a garment, so I used left over fabric from a past skirt that was the same weight to do simple Hong Kong finishes to all of the seams. Nothing is more satisfying than taking off a jacket and casually laying it open over a chair, inside showing, and receiving comments about the inside effectiveness of the finishing. Nothing like praise to motivate you to keep on sewing.

The collar detail turned out to be exactly as the pattern described. I used the selvedge along one collar piece (there are four altogether) and it is a great feature. Probably not as obvious as I would have liked, you need to consider what effect your selvedge will have prior to using it.

I think it would be easy enough to use the selvedge on all four pieces to create more emphasis on the detail, as it is flattering next to the face.