I have been motivated lately to use up fabric I have collected instead of letting it sit around as unfinished projects. As an artist I have enough space taken up with blank canvases and yet unpainted birch panels. The quilt I made in a recent post was one such project, this kimono-style jacket another!
I bought some funky lace (looked to be about 3 yards of it ) more than 5 years ago as I thought it was too wild and pretty to leave in the store. It must have been on sale. Sewing lace is hard I have always heard so being intimidated I let it sit until the other day when my annoyance at its existence was enough to move me to action. My sewing machine was also disagreeable- what could go wrong? I looked up all sorts of blogs and YouTube’s to get an idea of how to start. Then I pulled out my favorite kimono jacket to base it off of and cut my pieces about an inch and a half larger all around to make it more flowy and hide the inevitable flaws (lace created many flaws for me through causing the material to pull and slide, but the texture also hid the flaws. I zigzagged the inside seams all multiple times to keep it from fraying!)
I cut the fabric as 1 back piece, a piece for each side in front where I would then sew them first at the top shoulder seams, and then sleeves.
The sketch in middle probably shows best how these things attach. I had such a large piece of lace I used the finished edges for all my exposed edges except the bottom where I did a large oversized hem. Using a different material I would have made the inside with finished edges and more precise measurements, but I found the lace to stretch and slide too much, so zigzagging and calling it good seemed fine enough.