Mid winter break - Jalie 2678

We've had the most incredibly cold weekend here in Melbourne, so it must be time to post some beachwear to the blog, right?

Back in June, the kids went up North for some sunshine and beach fun during the school holidays (thanks granny!) while Flipper and I stayed home and worked, and enjoyed the serenity. I'd only just sewn A her swimmers for the That Sewing Blab podcast and decided P needed some boardshorts. Enter Jalie 2678

I already had the grey and gold fabrics in the stash and I've genuinely forgotten where they came from. Then, as part of the Sewing Blab thing I won a voucher for The Remnant Warehouse and I added the very dark brown fabric to the stash. They didn't describe their fabric as boardshort fabric but it feels the same as the other two.

Boardshort fabric is lightweight, brushed, microfleece polyester. It seems to be widely available every where BUT Australia. There are lots of prints, but trying to find any locally, or any solid colours, or any from anywhere other than the US (bad Aussie dollar and huge shipping costs) proved to be really hard. I'm holding out hope that Joelle's might have some but I always seem to be free on weekdays when her shop decides not to open.

The sewing was all great and fun until I came to the instructions for the coin pocket on the inside. They simply didn't make sense. I eventually figured out what had to happen and decided there was an error in the pattern.

I emailed Jalie, and I'm happy to say they have issued an errata notice and updated their instructions. The cool thing about Jalie patterns is that even if you have an older printed version of the pattern, you can still download and print the instructions. Go help yourself to the new, corrected instructions.

There's a picture of the shorts inside out showing the successful coin pocket.

Here's an extract of my email about the error in case you've come here by searching for help with Jalie 2678 coin pocket (I love the idea that anyone ever finds my blog by typing "what the $#%^& is up with pattern number *** step ***")

{introduction and pleasantries}...

The 12th bullet pointed instruction says: 

- Fold pocket flap wrong side together (fig. 17). Pin flap to wrong side of pocket piece with eyelet (fig. 18)

And the illustrations show exactly this, with the pocket piece WRONG side up.

The very next step has you place the other pocket piece face down on top of the pinned eyelet pocket and flap:

- Pin hemmed piece over flap (fig. 19) and stitch (fig. 20). turn right side out.

Yet the illustration for this step now shows the eyelet pocket piece RIGHT side up. Contradicting the step before it.

In order to create the pocket with the flap outside the pocket and protecting the open edge it is necessary to follow the second, correct instruction not the first.

That is, the first instruction should read as follows:

- Fold pocket flap wrong side together (fig. 17). Pin flap to right side of pocket piece with eyelet (fig. 18)

And fig.18 needs to be corrected to show the eyelet pocket piece RIGHT side up.

{closing flattery and sign off}

And then moments after sending that message I went to attach my pocket to the shorts and almost sewed it closed. The top hem of the pocket needed to have been folded down twice. That resulted in another email and another correction to the instructions:

{awkward further pleasantries}

In the 11th bullet point instruction we are instructed to hem the top edge of the non-eyeleted pocket piece by 1cm. It is unclear whether that is a 1cm single fold hem, or a narrow double fold hem, but it would imply that only 1cm of the pocket edge is folded.

When one goes to attach the pocket a few steps later (fig. 21), the hemmed pocket opening would be stitched closed.

In order to not catch the pocket opening in the waist seam the hemmed edge of the pocket needs to be at least a 1.5cm seam, but would be safer as a 2cm hem. This would still be well covered by the pocket flap. Is the original hem instruction intending a double fold of 1cm, ie using a 2cm hem allowance?

{apologies for nitpickiness and sign off}

I had a look on sewing pattern review dot com and found quite a few people who had reviewed the pattern had commented on the pocket not working, or they had left it off altogether. The same on the Jalie website and the reviews there. I was happy to be the bolshie one who was convinced it wasn't me getting it wrong, or at least convinced enough to stick my neck out. You're welcome! :)

Thanks to my mother in law for sending me these snaps of the shorts being worn. What do you do when your little sister photobombs you like that?

Bury her of course!

I'm off to that very same beach myself tomorrow.

I'm going for a conference of course so I'm sure I'll have no fun at all. ;)