sewing

I thought I’d take a break from quilts and sew up a jacket I’ve had in mind since the fall–The Assembly Line Cap Sleeve Vest. I could see it as a good Zoom layer that kept me warm but also let whatever print I was wearing underneath get highlighted. And it is!

I sewed this up entirely in stash fabrics–a Kaufman light twill that I bought in the great Pants Fever of 2017 and a Fabric Godmother viscose lawn that I had shipped from England and then didn’t love. But do I love it as a lining? Yes! And do I love THESE NEW CUSTOM LABELS? You know it:

Oh yeah I finally made these happen. I’ve been wanting custom labels for a couple of years now, inspired by Martha Moore of Buried Diamond, but I thought I needed a designer. Turns out I just needed to pay for a trial of Canva and find a template to alter (and a cool font). Then I sent the file to Dutch Label Shop and boom! Custom labels of my dreams.

They’re about $2 each, so they’re not cheap, but they add more than $2 worth of flair. Get ready to see a lot more of these on every jacket-like project I make.

I’ve decided it’s the year of the capybara and also the year of quilts. I have two different quilty projects going on and we’re only four days into the new year.

I started what will be an all-year project: a new bed quilt in a “trip around the world” pattern. We have a king-size bed and these are two-inch finished squares, so…I hope I don’t get bored with it any time soon. (So far, it’s really fun to play with colors; I’m also using this tutorial that speeds things up a bit.)

I’ve also started a quilted chore coat. Did I already make a deeply involved quilted coat? Yes, but that one is long and has a black background and no collar. This one will be short with a white background and a collar. Completely different!

I’m making sawtooth star blocks using this tutorial and I can see them getting better. Amazing what happens with a little practice.

First we have the traditional cat shirt for Doc, in the traditional McCalls 6044 (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve made this pattern). The fabric is an out-of-print Alexander Henry quilting cotton, found online here.

We also have the traditional pattern-matched pockets, since that’s a feature he likes to show off to his coworkers:

Next up we have a classic grandpa “sweater” vest for my dad, to help him stay warm while he refuses to spend more money on heat (like a classic grandpa). The fabric is a Polartec ThermalPro sweater knit with the classic fleece back from Mill Yardage. I used the Green Pepper Plush Polar Jacket & Vest pattern with the same mods as my chartreuse zip. But just like my chartreuse jacket, I ran into issues with the zippers puckering, as you can see:

I guess I need to stabilize these fleece zippers but first I’ll have to figure out how to get anything fused to fleece. I finished everything with foldover elastic and it’s pretty clean inside, apart from the puckers:

These were fun and pretty quick to make, though, and I do like sewing for my loved ones–especially the loved ones that are reeeeallly hard to shop for.

After I finished my quilted pair, I decided Doc needed some warm fleece pants for winter hikes, so he got some for his birthday:

These are the Greenstyle Iron Joggers in a stretch Polartec hardface backed with shearling:

It was a spongy heavy knit so my topstitching is a little all over the place, but Doc reports they are both warm AND cozy, even in 15 degrees. Hooray!

I got Doc’s nephew in his family’s gift exchange this year. The nephew plays Dungeons and Dragons (and I’m 100% sure he doesn’t read this) so I sewed him a dice bag with themed fabric:

The outer fabric is a fat quarter from Spoonflower, in a print that has PG swearing/puns/cats–these are all very popular in the family:
I paid $5 for a basic tutorial on Etsy because I didn’t want to figure it out on my own…and then ended up doing the openings for the cord differently and figuring it out on my own anyway (but it’s a good tutorial all the same).

When I was pondering making this, I asked my own friends who play D&D if such a thing would be useful/welcome and they said yes, especially with some more dice inside. So I got him this set–more puns and general wackiness.

Will he like it? Probably! Was it a fun little make? Yeah! Did I deep dive into the world of game dice and see so many different kinds? You know it.

I got my vest done and it’s a layer I needed AND it’s reversible. So I’m trying to focus on those two facts and less on the fact that I look like I’m wearing a big quilted cube when I have it on.

In hindsight, I think adding length would have shifted this from “square” to “rectangle” a little more, but the cropped retro length is growing on me. I also could have gone down a size but I wanted room to layer/room for my back to get even more swole in a few years.

Construction-wise, the Green Pepper instructions were great, as usual. I added the step of quilting my outer to my insulation but other than that followed everything to the letter.  Materials were leftover Thinsulate from my winter parka project and DWR supplex and Polartec Thermal Pro shearling from The Rain Shed, plus my trusty KAM Snaps (that are reversible too!).

I’m working on a vest layer for hiking or around town and it’s gonna be WARM:

I quilted Thinsulate to nylon supplex and am layering it with Polartec Thermal Pro “shearling” (all from The Rain Shed). The pattern is a Green Pepper one, the “Women’s Santiam Reversible Vest”

I basted the two layers together and I look a little like the Michelin Man… I guess that’s how you know it’s a warm layer.

It got cold here and I needed a hiking layer. I just couldn’t get excited about the performance flannel options and already had two yards of this chartreuse Polartec and all the notions for it, so I sewed up a zip jacket:

I used the “Adult Plush Polar Jacket” pattern from Green Pepper, which is very similar to the pullover fleece pattern they have. The pockets on the Polar Jacket actually encompass the entire lower front; that seemed like it would get way too bulky for this fleece so I subbed in the pullover pockets  and made them out of supplex.

I also wanted to try binding the edge of the zipper in foldover elastic for a nicer finish, but I was rushing/treating this like a wearable muslin so it’s not the most professional. (It’s not the most professional in general; the fleece is soft and warm and light but was really hard to work with due to the lack of stability. Also it made a mess.)

But it’s good on the trail, warm but breathable, plus I’ve been wearing it at home a lot. Not bad for a project that was “free” [bought last year] and a couple sewing sessions.