This is my second quilted coat, and definitely a favorite so far. My first quilt coat was the Beachcomber by Laundry Basket Quilts. I made it as a class sample for a class I am teaching at Cary Quilting Company. You can click the image below if you want to register. The Feb 22/March 1 class is sold out, but there is a second session that starts March 15 which still has seats available.
The Beachcomber pattern uses a sweatshirt (one size bigger than you would usually choose) as a base for quilting the coat and its lining. You need the extra size since you deconstruct the sweatshirt in the process and will lose a certain amount of the size once you put the coat together. I made this one from Robin Pickens’ wildflower fabric line.
For my second jacket, I used the Tamarack Jacket from Grainline Studios. I have seen several of these made as quilt coats, and I liked the style and sizing options. I wanted this coat to be a rainbow gradiant of one of my favorite fabric designers – Tula Pink.
I opted to use the “I pink I love you” template set by Jen Kingwell to create the patchwork pattern. I deliberately selected prints with similar color tones for each row, working up from a dark indigo through the whole spectrum. There are a lot of y-seams with this template set, but once I got into a rhythm of sewing them, it wasn’t too bad. While I pieced the front and back of the jacket, I chose to keep the sleeves simpler and I color-blocked them with two fabrics from the Curiouser and Curiouser line.
The entire jacket was lined with fairy flakes and I used foldover elastic to bind the shoulder and sleeve seams.
There was a bit of adjustment required to make the patchwork fit the jacket but once I had everything lined up, I quilted the jacket pieces with variegated thread, sewed it together and bound the edges with the navy card suit print.
I love all the colors and fussy-cutting that went into this piece.It may be bright and busy, but it will definitely work with many different colors in my wardrobe.
Enchanted Pines Sewing 