Jalie 3675: Charlie Bomber Jacket

One of my favorite projects for my son this fall.

Pattern Background

Jalie 3675 is a simple unlined bomber jacket meant for stable knits or stretch wovens. It has a zip front opening, front welt pockets, and a little fabric tab where the hem band meets the zipper. It comes in sizes 2T (21″ chest, European 92) all the way to European size 52 (50″ bust). I was looking to make a fall jacket for my two year old son now that temperatures around here have officially left summer territory, and thought it was a perfect fit for the fabric I had recently purchased. Normally I love using Ottobre patterns for my son’s wardrobe, but with the tariff chaos they aren’t currently shipping to the US so I had to look elsewhere.

Materials

The main fabric is a quilted poly/cotton/lycra blend quilted knit from Jumping June Textiles. As soon as I saw this online I had to get it. It is definitely one of the most expensive fabrics I’ve purchased, but since toddler clothing has minimal yardage requirements it made the purchase less painful. I also have enough left over for a vest or colorblocked future jacket for him.

If you purchase this knit make sure to serge or bind the edges because it loves to shed.

The rib is a coordinating heavy rib knit, also from Jumping June Textiles.

The zipper is a navy blue #3 molded plastic zipper from WAWAK. I needed to shorten it to 12″ and didn’t have any #3 zipper stops in stock, so I borrowed a couple of stops from an old zipper in my stash.

The thread is Gutermann Mara 70. Normally I prefer Mara 100 or 120 weight for garments, but I couldn’t really find a good thread match for this fabric (it is like a saturated mustard color with orange/brown tones in it) and already had this in my stash, so I decided to just go with it. Luckily the thick knit was able to hold up to the heavier weight thread (and the topstitching does look nicer due to the loft of the fabric).

Fit/Alterations

My son is currently a size 92 in Ottobre. I hardly ever buy RTW clothes for him anymore, but when I do it seems right now he’s typically closer to a 3T than a 2T. Even though size 92 in Ottobre fits him pretty generously I decided to size up to the 3T in this pattern (Euro size 98) because I wanted him to be able to easily layer and hopefully get a year of use out of it. You can see it is a bit big on him right now but not overly so.

Since I wanted to easily layer this over some of his sweatshirts I removed some of the shaping from the sleeve, turning it into a straight line from the armpit to the hem instead of curving in around the elbow slightly as drafted. I’m not sure this was actually necessary but hey, the room is there if we need it. I also added a total of 2″ to the hem width because my son wears cloth diapers and that often means shirt hems too snug and tend to ride up.

Construction

This is one of the newer Jalie patterns. The instructions are very clear compared to some of their older patterns. I hadn’t done a single welt pocket in a while and had no problem following Jalie’s instructions (which include illustrations for each step as well as written instructions in both English and French). There’s also a video tutorial on the website. IMO Jalie has put a lot of effort into making their patterns more accessible in both expanded size offerings and more thorough instructions. I am not super dependent on instructions but as I spend most of my days sleep deprived and/or distracted by toddler antics I appreciate the extra hand holding.

I did use a narrow, dense zigzag stitch to reinforce the pocket openings. This wasn’t in the Jalie instructions but Ottobre often recommends it.

Conclusion

This is a great jacket pattern for the whole family. Instructions are clear and the drafting is well done. He wore it for the first time today when we went to see Grandma and Grandpa and refused to take it off the entire time we were there!