My handwoven jacket

Bartlettyarns Dark Heather and Peacock sportweight

2/2 Twill yardage unwashed

I think this is what they mean by cutting it close. Pen used for scale.

Rather than cutting the back pieces to exact width, I left the selvedge edge intact.

I do not recommend sewing the sleeves on inside out. Expletive.

This past summer, I was lucky enough to attend Convergence, a biennial conference for fiber artists, sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of America (HGA).  This is the event where I went gaga at the Habu booth. Haaaaabuuuuuuu...... Ahem. Anyhow, I spent a bit of time peeking through the garment samples at The Sewing Workshop booth. Sometimes it's a stretch for me to look at a two-dimensional rendering of a garment and envision what it might look like on me after I have invested both time and money in materials and sewing hours. Here I got to try things on before buying the corresponding pattern.

 
There were two jackets that tickled my fancy, the High Five Jacket, from their Shapes line, and the Ikina Jacket. I can't say that I would have selected either jacket for myself if I hadn't tried them on, but loved both once I had them on. The patterns have been sitting on the shelf since then, but a few weeks back I decided I was in the mood to make a jacket. I wanted to use my Baby Wolf, so I chose the High Five Jacket as it could be most easily manipulated to work with my 26" weaving width. I love the shorter sleeve length. I need to make myself a pair of forearm warmers.
 
I ordered some sportweight Bartlettyarns Fisherman in Dark Heather and Shetland in Peacock, two cones of the former and one of the latter. Here are the warp details:
 
26" weaving width
12 epi
5 yard warp (1560 yards - 1080 dark heather, 480 peacock). I assume about a yard of waste.
Thread 2 inches of dark heather, 1 inch of peacock repeated across ending with 2 inches of dark heather
 
I used dark heather exclusively for the weft. You'll need 1248 yards to get 4 yards of fabric - woven balanced at 12 picks per inch. I chose a 2/2 twill for its classic look. Off of the loom, my pre-wash fabric dimensions were 23.5" x 148". I zig zag stitched across my two cut edges and put the fabric in the washing machine (we have a top loader) in cool water on the delicate cycle. I will confess to not weaving a sample, but I did knit a 4" x 4" square and washed it with our normal laundry, and ended up with about a 10% loss in dimensions. I assumed a similar loss and ended up with an 11% loss. Close enough for me.
 
Just a side note. I am floating selvedge averse. If you thread your 26" 12 dent reed straight draw 1-2-3-4 and tie up for a 2/2 twill, you'll end up not catching thread #1 and thread #312 (the edge threads). So skip em. Start with 2-3-4, then move on to 1-2-3-4 across, eliminating 4 at the end, and leaving the first and last dents of your reed empty.
 
Another side note, this time about the zig sag stitch. I find that a wider stitch width and a shorter stitch length works nicely.
 
The pattern was a tiny bit wider than my 21" wide washed fabric, but the jacket is drapey enough that I simply eliminated the hem in the split seam at the hip. This is a selvedge edge, so I'm just going to pretend it wasn't meant to be messed with. I like my mid-30s laid back self. My younger self would have seen this as a failure and gotten all surly. I know you're reading this and smiling, Mom.
 
The back was meant to be one solid piece, but my weaving width meant that this ended up being two pieces, stitched together selvedge to selvedge. No biggie. The overall width of the two pieces stitched together to create the back was about 1.5" wider than the pattern piece. I didn't want to cut into the selvedges along the outside edges, so I just opted to have a bit more fabric in my seam. I had just enough fabric for this project. Cutting it close seems to be my specialty.
 
Originally I was thinking that I'd leave the sleeves out. The body of the jacket had a bit of a capey look to it that I liked, but I pinned a sleeve in and ultimately decided to use them. Perhaps in an act of spite, the first sleeve I sewed in, perfectly lined up mind you, decided to be inside out. I said a bad word, put on my snazzy magnifying specs and set to picking out my sewing. I think this falls in the measure twice, cut once category.
 
I haven't pressed all of the seams quite yet as I'm stitching some of the seam fabric down to create a smoother surface. I find that with thicker wool fabric, you can end up with seams that prefer to stick out rather than lay flat. Nothing that a quick whip stitching can't solve. I'm also going to track down some ribbon or tape to sew over the interior seams that are likely to be seen for a more finished look.