Completed Project: Simplicity 5922 - Skulls! Faux Fur!



I’ve spent the past few weeks working on Vintage Simplicity 5922, it’s finally finished, and I felt like showing it off! Even though I’m currently experiencing summer in the SF Bay Area, I love faux fur, and I hope to one day move back to a city that experiences true winter. In the meantime….

This jacket pattern is meant to be made in a combination of fur and a woven fabric. I decided to go with the fur sleeve option this round.  The body of the fabric is this amazing black-on-black skull silk-cotton from the designer Milly that I bought from Cali Fabrics (I think it’s sold out because I bought it all). The sleeves are a black shag 2” faux fur also from Cali Fabrics, and the lining is a purple polyester from the brick-and-mortar home of Cali Fabrics, Fabric Outlet (shop local!)

I made a quick muslin of this and found it to be a bit snug around the lower band. It’s a size 14, which is sized for a 28” waist, but felt a little too tight for a jacket so I ended up sewing it with ¼” seam allowances and adding to the bottom band, and now the bottom band is close-fitting but comfortable.


The waistline and sleeves are gathered.  I used quilting thread to hand baste and gather the faux fur, but gathers in faux fur is not something I recommend. I mean, that’s how the pattern is shown, so it must be do-able, right? Simplicity believes it’s possible! Well, I nearly wept when I tried to attach gathered fur sleeves to the cuffs – bulky no matter how much I trimmed the fur and it just barely even fit in my machine.  My Brother machine has a low clearance above the presser foot and the cuffs kept getting snagged on the automatic threader.  I ended up disengaging the knife on my serger and serging it on first, almost like a basting stitch. This made it easier to sew it under the machine, but I had to use a long stitch, and I made two passes over it. I think it will hold up! But I thought for a second I was going to have to leave it as a cropped cuff-less sleeve.  It’s so much hassle and yet you can’t even tell that that sleeve is gathered since it’s fur.  Ugh.  If I make the fur sleeved version again, I will attach the cuffs first and then sew the sleeve seam, instead of sewing the cuff in the round.

Other than the sleeve struggle, which was mighty, this was a pretty straightforward make.  The only hand-sewing is to slipstitch the sleeve lining to the cuff seam allowance (and the hand basting).  I’m thinking about making the version with the faux fur body and a wool sleeve and trim. 
(overexposed to show off the skulls, so my head looks like an alien!)
Some technical details: I use a 100/16 needle for sewing thru fur and an 80/12 needle when it was just sewing the jacquard.  I trace the fur pattern pieces on the backing with a Sharpie and then cut it with an exacto knife to minimize ‘shedding’. And if you sew with faux fur often, you might consider using an inexpensive electric hair trimmer to trim the fur out of the seam allowances (I have a $20 Wahl trimmer that I used to use on my cats and now I use for sewing. Never to be confused with the trimmer that I use on my own head!)  Wonder clips are a must-have when working with faux fur.


This project is another one of my ‘big’ projects I had planned for the year. So far I can cross of the trench coat, the military style jacket (a Kelly Anorak I have not blogged) and now this faux fur jacket.  Next up is a pleather moto jacket!  Anyone else thinking about winter already and sewing with faux fur?

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