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I buy sweatshirts when Walgreens or other places have them 3 for $10 or
whatever.
My personal taste is to use fabrics that do not have a great deal of
contrast, but this is your choice. Your jacket – your choice.
Use a sweatshirt that is one size large. Try it on before you cut it up
to see if you will have to adjust the sleeve length. I speak from
experience.
Cutting up the sweatshirt
The idea is to get flat pieces of sweatshirt to work with. The sleeves
were set-in in this one. You do not have to take out seams, just cut
next to the seam. With this style sweatshirt cut off the sleeves, then
cut the sleeves open along the inside length, there may be a seam there
to cut along, other wise, just press and cut along the line. Cut up the
side seams. Then, fold the sweatshirt in half lengthwise and press to
find a line down the middle of the front, or measure to find this line.
Then cut from the bottom up through the ribbing on the neck, Either
leave this ribbing in place while you are working or stay stitch around
the neckline to keep it from stretching. Now you should have 3 flat
pieces – 2 sleeves and one body of the sweatshirt.
If you have a different style sweatshirt, just cut it similarly so you
wind up with flat pieces you can sew back together.
Cover the sweatshirt
For the covering on this jacket, I did the sleeves in one fabric, by
just cutting a piece of fabric to cover and then fancy stitching it down
in a few places as well as around the edge of the piece close to the
edge so the stitching will fall within the seamline when you are
finished.
I prefer to have the fuzzy inside of the sweatshirt next to my skin, so
I apply the fabric to what would have been the outside. This is up to
you.
I then cut 2 ½ wide strips of scraps for the main body. I cut these
strips into 3, 5 and 7 inch lengths. The I seamed the small pieces back
into strips long enough to cover the piece I was working on – for
example the back, In this shirt, I cut a more or less square piece of a
toile fabric I particularly liked and pinned it to the middle of the
back.
Then I took a piece of the strips I reassembled and put it face down
along the bottom of the toile, raw edges together and sewed a ¼ inch
seam. I pressed that open, then sewed another strip from the bottom edge
of that strip, sup the right hadn side of the quilt, then the top and
then the left side. This is the same way you would construct a log cabin
block. The I kept adding pieces around the outside until all the
sweatshirt back was covered and a little extra fabric sticks over the
sides.
For the front sides, I laid a piece along the bottom of the side piece,
put the second strip face down on top of the first and sewed a quarter
inche seam and pressed it open and then kept applying pieces the same
way until the sweatshirt fabric was covered. Then I covered the
remaining piece of the front. I ran a line of stitching around the edge
of the sandwich close to the edge and then trimmed the edges even.
Quilting the Jacket
The last step is to quilt or free motion embroider or what ever you want
to do to add a little extra to the coat. This was a demo piece to show
fancy threads, so I used a variety of threads to fancy stitch the seams
and then free motion embroidered the flowers.
Reconstructing and finishing
I reconstructed the sweatshirt, by sewing the flat sleeve pieces into
the flat body piece. Then I sewed up the inside of the sleeve and the
sides of the jacket.
The final step is to cut off the knitted piece around the neck if you
left it on and then to bind the edges of the jacket the same as you
would a quilt. If you wish you can put a zipper in the front, but I am
always overheating, so I just leave the front open. You could also use
fancy closures if you wish.
Send me a picture!
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