Red Fleece Jacket for Fall

A few different things inspired this jacket.  I saw jackets at Target made out of sweatshirt fleece.  I thought it was a good idea, a casual, comfy hoodie, but made with buttons to look a little nicer than a hooded sweatshirt, even though that's what it is.

Then I saw a coat from Anthropologie, which isn't on their website anymore, I should have saved the image.  The coat I can't show you had the waist seam and the 3/4 seam on the sleeves.

So I got some sweatshirt fleece when it was 50% off and used a basic coat pattern I had to adjust for this coat.  So far I really like it, I think my favorite thing about making my own jacket is the fact I can make the

sleeves long enough!

My family has really odd proportions.  I have a short torso, then really long arms from my mom.  Then I have these huge man hands with witch fingers from my dad.  All of these traits together makes proportions like an ape or orangutan.  In elementary your shorts had to be longer than your fingers, and the ends of my fingers almost seem to go to my knees, so there was stress back before bermuda shorts were popular.

So I've never had a jacket or coat with sleeves that actually made it to my wrist.

I think because of this, making my own jacket, these sleeves were going to be long enough and then some.

The pattern I used seemed to have a ginormous hood.  I planned on making it smaller, but just went with it.  It ended up have a huge hood, which is fine.   It makes it kind of unique I guess when we pretend I wanted it that way.  I lined the hood with charcoal yard dyed shirting that was on the clearance rack for $2.00/ yard.  The rest of the jacket isn't lined, as this is a glorified hooded sweatshirt.

The back has the same waist seam, then to diagonal seams going up to the neck.

I decided to add pockets to the outside, and went with puffy rounded pockets.   You can see I left a lot of the edges raw, the waist seam and 3/4 sleeve seam and around the pockets.  I thought it would add a more casual look to the jacket. 

So far, I've loved this jacket/ sweatshirt for fall.  Keeps me warm without pulling out the big winter coat, and light enough for the warmer days.  I think it's kind of cute too... for a hooded sweatshirt.

We were down visiting my mom and this is her porch filled with all the pumpkins she grew!

As kids we'd sell them, I think one year between myself and younger brother and sister (Lynette) each made over $50.00 which seemed awesome to us.

(his crusty face is what resulted from my mom telling him to make a scary Halloween face when she took the picture)