French pattern house I Am Patterns released the Artemis jacket as part of its I Am A Goddess collection – Artemis being the goddess of the hunt, and this jacket is killer. It has a really minimal shape, even the sleeves are part of the body pieces, and the seams along the front hide sneaky massive pockets, hooray! The jacket is classed as beginner-friendly, and quite rightly so. With no sleeves to set in and a boxy shape, if you can sew a straight line, you can sew an Artemis.
The pattern needs a fabric with a decent weight, but I’d say not to go too rigid because the curve of the underarm seam may not sit all that comfortably if the fabric is too heavy.
Recommended fabrics are wool, tweed, denim, corduroy (pink jumbo cord, anyone?), gabardine, even faux fur; there’s so much scope for trying this in different fabrics. I chose a mustard denim and it is so. bloomin. nice. It’s got a little bit of stretch to it giving the jacket lovely flexibility and movement, I think it would make a lovely skirt or jeans too, just that bit of stretch that you often don’t get with denims. The colour is absolutely perfect for autumn and it’s neutral enough to go with everything.
Each step of the making process is well described and straightforward to sew. I find I Am instructions to be slightly on the minimal side, but if you literally just do exactly what they say without overthinking, it all comes together! With no fiddliness of sleeves, complex fastenings or details (or even interfacing!), you could make this jacket in around 3 to 4 hours.
I decided against buttons because I won’t wear it buttoned up and I like the cleanliness of the style, but other than that I followed the design and instructions to a tee. The length turned out bang on where I wanted it to be (I'm 5’6” if that helps you visualise if you’d need to add on or remove any length), and I love the relaxed fit. The only change I made to the design was to add a fold-back cuff detail, something about hemming as per the instructions just didn’t look right. I scoured my offcuts and found this perfectly contrasting fabric which has given a little pop of contrast.
After finishing the jacket my only bugbear was that the pockets were flapping about a lot and could be seen when wearing it open – I really wish I’d finished all my seams with binding to make them look perfect. In the end I top stitched the whole pocket down and it holds them in place nicely. I’ve since heard that there is a lining add-on on the I Am website so I’ll definitely include that next time!
All in all, the Artemis was a joy to sew and if you’re keen to try making outerwear but worry about it being a step up, this is the perfect entry level sew. There’s scope for hacking the design, I’d like to try colour blocking or a midi-length version which would look amazing in some pink tweed! Artemis, goddess of the hunt, you’ve caught me!
You can follow Alice on her instagram account. Alice was provided the fabric free of charge in exchange for her blog post. Alice chose the fabric she wished to work with and what she wanted to make, all thoughts are her own.