Ilford Jacket - menswear version

Aug 21

Aug 21 Ilford Jacket - menswear version

My husband Dave has been looking at the jacket from Community Clothing for a long time, I was even going to get him it for his birthday last year but then the green was out of stock, and by the time it came back in stock we thought it was maybe a bit too expensive when I can just make one. So we did!

The pattern is the Friday Pattern Company Ilford we will come back to that in a minute. The fabric is some cotton drill from Dalston Mill. The colour on the website is very misleading it looks both warmer and more green than the more army type colour it ended up being. But it was cheap and good quality and it's the right kind of weight for a jacket. The buttons are from my stash.

**This is the website image of the fabric. Definitely not the colour it is!**

So, the pattern, which is badged as unisex. I've made this a couple of times before, in the view with the plain sleeves (which is what Dave wanted, there's also a version with placket sleeves), which turns out is meant to be 3/4length, but is full length on me. My own ones are a size L, we chose a XL for Dave based on his chest measurement. And then I lengthened the sleeves a.lot. Like a lot a lot!

What I did not do however, is lengthen the body, despite Dave being a foot taller than me. So it ended up ridiculously short, which we also only discovered after I'd finished the whole thing. Luckily I had some fabric left so I unpicked the hem, and added a double hem band. I tried various widths but in the end went for just 4.5cms, to match the width of the button band but with the let out hem it was enough. And it looks so intentional and better than if I'd just lengthened the main pattern piece, actually! I'm pretty proud of rescuing that so successfully without any instructions.

The cool thing about the Ilford is that you can mix and match pocket styles, Dave chose the rectangular pockets, with flaps on the bottom for the big ones and without at the top for the smaller ones. I also added a pencil pocket because I just totally love the idea of a pencil pocket.