Autumn is well and truly here and the trees are putting on a magnificent show with their yellow, gold and red leaves. The weather has also turned cold too. With that in mind, I decided to make myself a quilted jacket to wear for autumn. This jacket should also be warm enough for me to wear with other layers such as my Kimonos during winter.
I have made this quilted jacket before so the pattern was available to hand. This meant that I could fully concentrate on getting it sewn up. And sewn up I did, in a day. Pretty impressive but it’s too tiring for me and I don’t think I’ll pull an all nighter like that again.
To quilt this jacket, I used a lovely bright red fabric from Liberty sandwiched with a thick wadding and black lining. I chose the bright red fabric based on the red leaves all around me at the moment. I also wanted to stand out from the sea of black suits and coat in London.
To make the quilting process a bit easier, the pieces were roughly cut up to correspond to the size of the pattern pieces. This made the sandwiched layers small enough to be quilted on the domestic sewing machine. The fabric, wadding and lining are all then placed together and roughly pinned to fix all the layers.
Once all the pieces are ready, I did a diagonal running stitch about 4 cm apart up and down to create a diamond quilt pattern. The patterns are then placed on the quilted pieces, cut out and edges overlocked. The pieces are then sewn together as normal and poppers button attached to the front.
Here is a shot of me wearing the jacket. It reminds me of those quilted jackets that the dowager would wear in China during winter. I can’t wait for this jacket to get a bit worn and dirty. This will add character to the jacket and make it feel like a vintage piece. You can probably see that I paired this jacket with the polka dot shirt I made a couple of weeks ago.
I also made trousers to go with my autumn/winter looks. Instead of the normal slim fitting, printed trousers I usually make, I decided to go for something looser, higher at the waist and pleated on the front as well. I also used the left over polka dot fabric to make the pockets.
I am quite happy that these pieces all go together. So happy that I have another piece of Liberty fabric that I might quilt up and make the same jacket.
I got a lot of positive comments on my look but as usual, there are some people out there who just doesn’t understand. They laugh behind my back because of the bright colour or the print but didn’t seem to realise that standing next to them is a stranger wearing the exact same outfit as them. I chose to be different and not to blend in with my surroundings. And with that, I chose to set the trend and not to follow them.
What say you?
Stephen Yong 