I found a very cheap cotton Gorman quilt and immediately thought I’d make a reversible jacket with it. I spent most of March and April considering my options: pattern; front fastening; pockets; edging; etc, and then saw Hélène’s @hportemanteau Made it Patterns Flip Jacket and thought that would work nicely.
The Flip Jacket is fully reversible and double breasted with snap fasteners. It has a grown-on standing collar, with a v shaped back collar. It has pockets, including a zipped pocket on one sleeve. If you are quilting your own fabric, then there is an option to make it more interesting.
I removed the edge binding from the quilt which was a natural colour, and dyed it with cochineal. I mordanted it with alum but added a wheat bran bath to remove excess mordant. The resulting colour was very vibrant, and I was worried that it was too bright.
Unusually I washed it straight after dyeing and the colour dulled down quite a lot.
The quilt sat on my cutting table for three days whilst I considered various options. I tried my hardest to match the quilting lines, but it proved impossible. I cut each pattern piece out individually to try to get the pattern in the best spots possible without wasting too much fabric.
I had to think about seam finishes and my initial thought was flat felling all the seams, but whilst I managed to do this successfully on a practice run, the reality of doing it on the jacket was a different matter. The fabric was extremely bouncy and a little bit thick. This photo shows my first lot of unpicking – I sewed for half a day and unpicked for a whole day! It also shows the funny quilting method used in commercial quilting which makes pattern matching impossible.
Once flat felling was off the table, I thought about regular seams with the dyed binding sewn flat over the top on one side. The word “busy” popped into my head so then it was faux flat felled seams: French seams with extra stitching lines, and this worked reasonably well, although they aren’t quite as perfect as I would like.
As usual I took no in progress shots, so here is my finished jacket. I’m pretty delighted with my dyed binding, it blends perfectly. I like it both done up and undone, and the collar can be folded down when I feel like it.
Pattern placement was tricky. I couldn’t mirror the design and the front flap does cover one of the trees, but I’m ok with that. I really like the pattern placement at the back.
This side of the jacket has in seam pockets as per the pattern, and the zipped sleeve pocket.
Of course there was a seam allowance on the edges because this jacket is supposed to be lined. I briefly considered trimming the edges back, but knowing my dodgy cutting, I decided to leave it. This means that the sleeves are a tad long and the neck a bit high, but I can live with this, and both can be turned back if necessary.
I really love the other side of the quilt, although I probably won’t wear it this way as much. Worn here with my Stokx Square Pants
I used black snaps on the original side (probably considered the right side) and orange/red snaps on this side.
If you look closely you can see that I did bind one seam – the neck seam. If you ask me why, I would have to say that I have no real idea, I just did it and then thought about it afterwards. I suspect that my subconscious thought that this seam, which is shaped, might be too bulky if I French seamed it.
The pockets on this side are shaped patch pockets, which I hand sewed on in a bluff pocket style. They hide the in seam pockets from the other side. The jacket goes well with my jeans too.
I wore the jacket for my meetup with Megan and Katherine in Kings Park, so I’m wearing it over my Fibremood Uzma hexie top.
I’ve been putting the coat on for odd occasions as and when I need a bit of warmth: it is very warm!
Surprisingly it goes with lots of my clothes. I didn’t think I’d wear the reverse side much, but I really like it with my mustard zero waste trousers. I had a meeting today and the person I was meeting with asked if my jacket was reversible. She nearly fell off her chair when I told her it began life as a Gorman quilt!
A final tiny treat for you. Miss G loves keys and I had to follow her around in case she lost one. Sorry it’s a bit short – she got away from me. Don’t you just love a toddler?
