I just finished making my Liberty Ridge Jacket. This was my first experience sewing from a pattern. It was a little more difficult than I expected but overall I am happy with the results. Taking the advice I read on this site I sewed it first with a painters drop cloth. I am glad I did because after realizing how large the large is I ended up making myself the medium which fits great. Perhaps the most important thing I learned is that taking the time to iron and pin carefully pays dividends when sewing. I also learned that you cannot forego singeing the fabric after cutting it. About halfway through things started to unravel pretty bad and I had to go over it with a butane lighter. I’ll get an alcohol lamp before my next project.

I’m using this jacket for running so prefer to have it drape loosely rather than have an elastic waist. I used some of the leftover fabric and made it into binding tape. When it came time to sew the cuffs I had a difficult time figuring out how to do it. I ended up sewing the elastic fabric into a loop and putting it and the sleeve around an appropriately sized bottle I had around (mason jar would probably work well). This made it pretty easy to pin it all the way around before sewing. After sewing the first pass, I trimmed the raw edge of the sleeve to .25”, folded the elastic to the inside and stitched through the ditch to encase the raw edge. Not sure if this is what was intended but it seems to have worked.

As I wrote above. I’m really happy with the result, especially as this was my first sewing project. There are a couple mistakes that I made that no-one else notices but I can’t help but see every time I look at it. I might make another one just to try and get a little closer to perfect.

Thanks for the great kit and the great information on this site.

Teryk

Really nice job on your Liberty Ridge—looks great.

Thanks Ayce. I really enjoyed it. Questions for you. I’m ordering the Liberty Ridge pants. I’m between waist sizes in the list. I’m not really planning on wearing many layers underneath. Would you recommend going with the smaller or larger size? How hard would it be to modify the pattern if I bought the larger size and need to reduce it a bit?

It can be tricky to alter an apparel pattern, but in this case the waist is a drawcord and there is no fly.  Because of that, the waist can be snugged up the extra inch with no problem.  I’d size up and give it a go.