Journey Jacket - it's all in the lining.

The original Journey jacket is how I learned about adding pockets to other clothes.
They have updated and enhanced it since then.

Journey Jacket 2

Saf-T-Pockets is all about adding pockets to clothes to keep your hands free.
https://saf-t-pockets.com/

If you read enough of this blog, my theories are clear: pockets are damn handy. If you have your keys in your pocket, you won't get locked out.

Many women have breasts.

If you have a loose fitting or oversized jacket or coat, 

 there's space you can use for storage 

under those breasts.

It's like a shady grove for things inside your clothes.

Oh, the star is the bust point. And since I grew a new tummy, I can't run the pockets all the way down. The opening of the pocket can be at the bust point, if the pocket contents can hang below it.

The lining is full of pockets and hangs from the shoulder seams to keep those pockets from bulking out the outside fabric. 

Kinda like one of those hanging shoe caddies for closets.

photo stolen from Wayfair because I have a cat in my lap and I'm not getting up to take a photo

I've done this on several jackets on this blog; traced off a lining pattern, cut it, added pockets, and then sewn that lining to the inside of a previously unpocketed jacket.

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2013/03/adding-pockets-to-existing-jackets.html

(I no longer have that jacket, but I have the photos to remember)

The key is keeping the weight hanging from the shoulder seams. so it doesn't unbalance the jacket.

For this jacket, I wanted a facing of the same fabric, not to just run the lining up to the edge (as I understand it, the facing is standard issue with the Journey 2 jacket).

I cut a fashion fabric facing for the front lining.

Facing and lining sewn together.

Auditioning pocket locations.

- I pinned the lining onto me and marked the top and bottom location with safety pins.

And those pockets are going to get zippers.

Sewing the zipper opening 'window' with interfacing around it

Flipped to the inside and pinned: I will topstitch it in place from the right side at this point,

because the pocket doesn't have a back side to it yet.

I pin the back to it and stitch around the edges.

Be careful over the zipper end.

The other pocket is a self welt pocket, where you sew one large piece of pocket fabric to the lining, 

turn that to the inside, and fold it over to make a welt and the body of the pocket.

Or if you like my super sharp Paint diagrams...

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2014/01/self-facing-welt-pocket-diagrammed-in.html

Still needs tweaking but it's getting there.

Journey Jacket, same reasons, with doubts

I wasn't blogging when I made the first one of these, back in .....2002? 2003? I had bought the pattern at In The Beginning years before, and then just could not find the right fabric.

However, I did find the right reason.

The idea behind this pattern is hands free travel. A jacket with lots of useful pockets so you won't have to carry a bag for your wallet, passport (long before cell phones would have fit in anything smaller than a suitcase).

I was working an onsite ticketing job where I could be carrying a large quantity of money to and from work, in various locations, doing box office cashier work.

And I wanted to be able to look like I wasn't carrying anything, or at the very least, could give up on the cashbox because it didn't have any cash in it.  I sewed myself a multipocket expanding wallet that I could make change out of, for the situations where the cashbox was like wearing a billboard walking down a side street downtown. HEY I AM CARRYING LARGE QUANTITIES OF NONSEQENTIALLY NUMBERED BILLS LARGER THAN ONES.

The wallet itself. Still comes in handy now and then.

I was working for Judy Cites, who at one point in her career worked for Northwest Releasing, a music promoter, and in that capacity found herself carrying several thousand dollars in cash to pay Chuck Berry's fee at the stage door so he'd go onstage.

She carried that money in her go go boots.

The first Journey version was a victim of it's usefulness. It was poly crepe, easy to wear, very handsome, and smelled like all the cigarettes I smoked wearing it.

So it went.

I knew I would make another one eventually.

I bought this tropical weight wool fabric for this version in anticipation of a job interview that did not go the way I hoped.

But I got the second job, in a box office. And you can always use a 'grown up from the waist up' jacket in a box office.
Except now we are closed and will be for some time.

And even though we are in the Covid 19 shutdown, and there are no performances I need to dress adult for, no concerts I need a sweet jacket to go purseless for, I am making it, as an act of faith.

POCKETSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It needs work. Overexposed to show collar and seam problems. 

I may not have the job.

But I will have the jacket.