ReCycle Jacket with Sweat, Jeans, Tie

The Second jacket for my Unity pattern – this one to replace a favorite of mine (and apparently someone else’s – as it was swiped right off a HIGH rod in my booth at the Houston Quilt Festival! Grrrrrr.). Sure hope they are enjoying it as much as I did! 🙂

See here the stack of goodies I pulled together. See those HUGE new snaps right in the center? About an inch in diameter – oooo, I love them! The only thing that has me disappointed as I try to design with them though is that undone – you only get to see the spectacular-ness of the ‘under’ snap – not the guts of it on the ‘upper’ layer – shucky durn. My stolen jacket featured the butterfly appliques. I have those to sell, and want to use them again – but they seem to compete with the tie – so not sure if they’ll end up in this or not. The yarn is wool, and it shrank on that first jacket – so I know to couch it down REAL well.

Here, you see the bottom portion of this jacket all prepared…and it took quite a few steps to get to this point! That’s the waistband of the jeans to the left. I took the pockets off – as they were upside down when you use the jeans upside down… and shrunk the pockets as well.

I’m also hard at work figuring out how to easily do – and share/teach – how to cut the sleeves out, recut the cap, and an armscye – so you can have a less bulky look and feel under the arms on these jackets – yet still maintain the comfy factor of the sweatshirt to begin with.

That’s the task for me today – after I finish this one up.

Here’s where I stopped last night – and yea, I know that the ‘tie’ isn’t ‘even’ at the top – so what??? It’s gonna be covered with the collar anyway. Wait til you see it – I cut it on the bias from the legs. It will be GREAT!

What you see here is the bottom, outer main portion of that tie, all opened up and split right down the middle. I like using that wider tip up at the top. I stitched the right side of the tie to the wrong side of the sweatshirt, (which I had been sure to stabilize with fusible straight tape!). THen, folded it to the outside. I don’t even turn that outer edge under. I just zigged it down, then couched the yarn over top.

I’m afraid those butterflies won’t be ‘flittering around’ on this jacket – they’re just ‘too much’. I have to remember my motto: “Less is Best” .

My dear Sis wrote that she wanted to see bigger pictures – and have more how-to’s in this Blog. Hmmmm – that’s what the patterns are for, my dear!

My intent here is just to intrigue you and inspire you…..to do the same, and if you’d like, to buy my patterns. They will be available – added to the 3 I already have available – by early March. My goal is for the big show in Puyallup – 3, if not 4 new ones! all at my new site: http://www.makeasweatshirtjacket.com/

For Londa’s books, patterns, and supplies as described in her sewing escapades, please see Londa’s Creative Threads – http://www.londas-sewing.com