Doctor Who River Song Jacket- Part 1

I am preparing to do a River Song cosplay for Comic-con, so I chose the iconic costume from the episode The Pandorica Opens.  In the episode River wears a Diesel Gisil Jacket.  This jacket is now (probably because of cosplayers) pretty much extinct and the ones being sold on Ebay and such are upwards of $150.

So I decided to make my own.  Even though I have no experience making jackets.  How hard could it be?!

Hard.

As usual I drafted my own pattern on my dressform.  But this time I put a layer of quilt batting on my dressform before drafting.  Once I had the pattern I cut a lining layer of white cotton, a layer of batting, and a layer of thin white pleather/vinyl.  I basted the batting and cotton layers together and trimmed the seams of the batting to reduce seam thickness.

Here are the basted pieces:

Next I sewed the lining with batting together as well as the pleather fabric.  I pieced the two layers together, sandwiching the batting between the layers so it wasn't visible.

Next I worked on the collar.  I hate collars.  Drafting them is like...a shot in the dark for me.  Luckily this collar was pretty straight forward.

I sewed the lining layer and the top layer of the sleeves up the side seam, then connected both layers at the wrist so I would have a clean seam when I turned them.

I worked on the inner layer of the jacket next.  Unfortunately I did not buy enough fabric to really make this layer...so I had to compromise by flipping the pattern pieces oddly on the fabric to make them fit.  Unfortunately this caused problems when I went to put in the zipper.

The left side of the fabric stretches up and down.  The right side stretches left to right.  That made installing the zipper nearly impossible.

But with much patience, and redoing it many times, I'll be able to get the zipper to behave.

So here is the jacket so far, with both layers:

I am still waiting on a zipper for the top layer of the jacket.  The one I initially bought was WAY too short.  Once I have that I will be able to progress with the progress in Part 2.