MY "new" shirt jacket

Here's how this all officially started:

I bought my husband a shirt jacket for Christmas. My brother-in-law saw it and sent me to the store for another one.

His dad saw his, and sent me for another one. His wife saw his, and here we go again.

I started to feel left out, but they don't come in a women's small (at least, not the ones I've been getting)

and I wouldn't spend the $$ on that for myself even if they did.

Our old neighbor (that is, former neighbor) sent two shirt jackets home with my husband for me to do with as I pleased. They were his father's, who was finished with them. Men's XL Tall.

I took this old man's (this is, aged man's) worn out jacket and turned it into one for me!

I still can't remember to take before or during pics most of the time,

so here's what it started out as: (different print and closure, but otherwise the same item)

And here's what it is now!

First: I cut off the cuffs, and cut the sleeves off at the shoulders

and shrank them down to fit my arms.

Second: I slashed the body open at the side seams, pinched it to fit my body,

and sewed it accordingly.

Then: I sewed the cuffs back on the sleeves, the sleeves back on the shirt, and pinched and stitched two darts on the front. (Somewhere before this move, I removed the pockets.)

Then I [ahem, crookedly] hemmed the bottom edge.

Finally: I folded one of the pockets into a rectangle, topstitched around the edges, put a buttonhole on each end, stitched two brown plastic vintage buttons from my stash into the middle of the back, and put on the little cincher (what is this called???).

The darts and cincher are optional, but make it more fitted and feminine.

I didn't actually plan for this one to turn out wearable.

I really believed I'd mess the first one up, so this was done as practice before I cut into the other jacket, which is the one I wanted to make wearable because the fabric is in better shape.

I'm afraid that, because I have a wearable one, it might be next winter before I get around to cutting into the other one. :( At least I'll be warm in the meantime.

TOTAL COST: about an hour, maybe a little less.