There’s been a lot of gift giving in June at Self Assembly Required HQ!

Today’s post is all about the Omer jacket – another make from the La Maison Victor magazine.

I don’t know why I’m making all the menswear patterns from this magazine but it’s working out pretty well for me so far! 🤣

This jacket was a complete labour of love. It has to be since I spent days and days working on it and it wasn’t even for me! LOL.

The Omer is a casual men’s jacket with a zip front, jetted pockets, zipped pockets, zipped sleeve gussets and a whole load of top stitching details.

I took the plunge on making it after seeing Andrew of Mensew’s versions (here and here – he’s got lots of tips and photos if you need the extra help too!) which turned out so well!

So the first mammoth task of any LMV make is tracing out the pattern and adding seam allowances. It’s times like these I’m so glad I have a pattern master. The inbuilt markings make adding the allowance much much faster. I’d definitely recommend getting one if you don’t have one already.

Normally I’m not too bothered at this. I trace my patterns anyway but there were A LOT of pattern pieces. Over 20 pieces to trace, add seam allowances, cut and then to cut the fabric… Mind numbing work.

Once that by was done though it was actually quite a fun make. The sleeves in particular!

The whole jacket is basically made up of lots of little pieces all joined together and top stitched. It kind of made me feel like I was doing a bit of quilting as I was piecing it all together.

I used some brown waxed cotton canvas I had in my stash. I’d bought this years ago off eBay and had intended on making some sort of waterproof trench coat out of it by it was a lot darker than I’d anticipated so into the stash it went. Maybe it was fate though because it was perfect for this make!

Sewing up was surprisingly straight forward. It’s nearly all straight lines bar the sleeves (and those are put in flat so it’s easier than a set in sleeve). I top stitched each part as I went using a slightly lighter coloured thread to contrast. I used an upholstery weight thread instead of a top stitch weight as I find my machine doesn’t chew it up so much.

I followed my gut instead of the instructions with the top stitching and it’s so satisfyingly see the details of it.

The tricky bits definitely lay with the pockets and all the zips but the instructions were pretty good and I managed to get through it all!

Because it’s a waxed cotton I had to line in. There’s no way it can be worn comfortably against the skin. I used a super soft plaid brushed cotton for it (again another one from the stash).

To avoid having to cut tons of little pattern pieces, I taped all the sleeves pieces together, and the separate back pieces too, in order to cut them out as one piece. I added in some extra wiggle room at the CB with a little pleat.

All in all I think it was a pretty successful make! It’s a time consuming project but I think the final result was worth it.

Sizing is a little on the big side in my opinion (but what do I know about men’s clothes?). If I had to do it again I would’ve made a size smaller for a more fitted look.

Tips for working with waxed cotton:

+ You can iron to remove creases from where the fabric’s been folded but you should use a pressing cloth on both sides otherwise you’ll make a huge mess of your iron and ironing board. Don’t iron too much as the fabric will lose all the wax!

+ Use a walking foot to prevent the fabric moving around too much.

+ Try using wonderclips instead on pins. I found pins were quite difficult to push through the fabric and that they also marked the fabric very easily.

+ Be prepared for your hands to feel sticky and waxy whilst handling the fabric! I ended up having to wash my hands every so often to get rid of the feeling!