Trust Me: I'm the Doctor. My Tennant Suit Journey Pt. 1

So, I got it in my head that for Hallowe'en I was going to be the 10th Doctor from Doctor Who.   I already had a sonic screwdriver (yanno, just lying around), so why not build an entire costume around one small accessory?  Seems legit.  For a couple of months over the summer (yes, I plan my costume that far ahead--doesn't everyone?) I looked around at thrift stores and whatnot for a brown suit with blue stripes so I could emulate David Tennant's suit in the show:

I can't even...Gah!

You wouldn't think it would be that hard, right?  WRONG!  I mean, it wasn't like I was looking for the original pairs of GAP pants that the suit was made from.  I just wanted something close, vaguely similar, even.  Turns out this was too high an order.  Thanks, world, way to make something that should have been easy super-complicated.

Fine, then, if life gave me lemons, I was just going to make my own freakin' suit.  WRONG AGAIN!  Guess what I discovered: there is no fabric currently available that even remotely matches the suit pattern.  Turns out life had handed me rocks instead of lemons.  

Finally, I was able to track down (via Pinterest, my go-to craft haven/ time waster) a fan-made pattern available on Spoonflower.com.  It was pretty expensive and not the best fabric I could have hoped for, but it would do in a pinch and by now I was determined to prove the world wrong--I was going to make this suit or go starkers for Hallowe'en!

After a couple weeks, my fabric arrived in the mail.  I was overjoyed (and a little frantic--it was now September 26 and I had less than 1 month to make this suit).  The colors were actually not too bad and the pattern did look pretty close to the original suit.  I'm not a fan of printed fabric (poke too many holes in it and you get white spots and runs) but time was running short.  The hardest part was guessing how much to buy.  At around $20/yard, I did NOT want to buy more than I needed, nor did I want to end up with too little, because that might lead to an embarrassing situation... 

Above is the fabric, all pretty and pressed, just waiting for me to hack it to pieces with my trusty sewing scissors.  Because there was no way I was making this from scratch, I found a couple of patterns that I hoped would serve my purposes.  I ended up with this Burda 7134 for the jacket portion.  Turns out that was a mistake, but more on that later.

Really, Heather, "advanced difficulty"?
What did you think was going to happen?

  Blithely unaware of the terrors that awaited me, I began the first cutting.  Things began smoothly enough, got the front and pack pieces all sewn together with little mishap (though basting turned out to be a nightmare, thanks to the white inner core of the fabric).

"OMG--it really looks like a jacket!!!"

Those pocket holes became the bane of my existence...

Now, I wasn't going to attempt anything fancy, mind, not like the faux-pockets on the real suit (where the opening was behind the flap instead of under it like usual) but little did I know that this pattern had some pretty odd ideas about pocket formation.  I won't traumatize you with the gory details, but let's just say it would have been easier do if I'd just winged it myself.  Which I eventually did in some places after a whole lot of seam-ripping.

What is this madness?!

Like the pockets, for example.  Look closely and you can see that the pattern just had me tack them on without properly tucking the edges under, thus leaving a ragged edge underneath.  Classy.

Eventually, I got the two front pockets sewn (mostly) to my satisfaction.  Here is where I had to stop.  I did some extensive research on the Tennant Suit because if I was going to do this thing, I wanted it to be as authentic as possible.  This Site is definitely the biggest help in that area--this bro has made a bunch of the Doctor's many outfits and is very detail-oriented.  

Anyway, I needed to learn how to make welted pockets for the inside of the lining (the jacket has three pockets on the inside) before I moved forward.  Luckily, the pants pattern I had picked out had welted back pockets, so I figured I could just replicate that part in the jacket lining after making the pants.  I eventually did, with varying degrees of success...

Stay turned for Part Two: Trousers from Hell.