I, being completely new to sewing, probably oughtn't to have tried something so ambitious as a tweed jacket conversion as my first project. Where I encountered difficulty:


1. Pockets
These were flap style pockets with smaller flap-style pockets underneath them. I have used a seam ripper before but these were sewn on with extremely tiny and very tight stitches so that when I tried to seam rip them, I ended up ripping up just as much tweed weave as actual pocket-attaching thread. So much so that I accidentally ripped a hole (about 1/3 inch diameter) in the tweed.

2. Cutting a straight line
I should have known better than to trust myself with scissors. I couldn't keep the liner and outer material, two layers of each, even when cutting. As a result, sometimes the liner ended up sticking out lower than the outer and I ended up with some weird curves on the bottom hem.

3. Hemming
The only way I know how to hem is not the way the maker of this jacket chose to hem the rest of it, so the bottom hem looks noticeably different from the rest of the jacket.

4. Curious construction
So under the pockets on each side were tiny panels of shiny liner material that seemed to serve no purpose but to connect two separate panels of tweed outer together. Once I took the pockets and shiny liner off, I had two freely-flapping panels of tweed outer connected only at the sides of the jacket and not to the front. My problem only became worse when I started cutting the waistline down and cut through the seam holding them on at the sides and that started to unravel, too.

So because of all that, the bottom of the jacket now looks like a complete mess. I'm hesitant to try again.