Butterick 5399--The African Mudcloth Jacket

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I purchased this great piece of African Mud cloth when I attended the 2010 American Sewing Expo in Novi, MI. Needless to say it has been sitting in my stash until a few weeks ago when I decided that I would enter the "Lined Jacket" contest on patternreview.com.                               What is MudCloth you might ask? According to Wikepedia  the Mali name is Bògòlanfini or bogolan ("mud cloth") is a handmade Malian cotton fabric traditionally dyed with fermented mud.^[1]

This is a heavy cotton that has the weight of  upholstery fabric and has little or no stretch  on the crosswise grain and moderate stretch on the straight grain. I zigzagged each piece as I cut it out to reinforce the hand stitching that gives the fabic its width. I used a denim needle because of the bulk, but beware, since this is hand woven fabric there are large slubs that will break a needle.  I made machine worked buttonholes...but did it very carefully.

 

I plan on wearing this instead of the requisite jean jacket this fall.