Like I need another jacket! However, when Bonnie mentioned the quilted jacket class I thought I’d enjoy sewing with the gals again, so I signed up.

First, select two different fabrics (I chose two batiks) – buy 3 meters. Then I left the fabric at Sew With Visioin (the Pfaff/Husqvarna shop where the class was going to be held) to make into a quilt sandwich with bamboo batting, then to have the whole thing quilted on the long arm quilter.

Thursday I went to class having prepped the pattern – traced a size small knowing it would need a bit of adjusting. Cut the fabric, pin based it, adjusted the fitting and then began to sew.

The point of the class (as far as I was concerned) was to learn ways of joining double sided fabric using bindings. For the most part that wasn’t terribly difficult – line up one edge of the binding with the edge of the seam, sew, press binding away from the garment, fold over seam, press, pin (I actually found it easier without pinning), stitch binding to garment on the second side. The tricky seam was along the underarm of the sleeve – it gets narrow pretty quickly so it’s slow going carefully keeping the binding flat against the sleeve as you go along.

Because I wanted the jacket to be completely reversible and have pockets on both sides, I had to come up with a way to access the pocket on one side through a zippered welt opening on the second side.

It looks as if there’s a pocket on the second side, but it’s actually just access through the front to the pocket on the other side.

The buttonholes took forever – I tried some samples on my embroidery machine but today the machine wouldn’t cooperate with me (it may have to go in for a check-up). In the end I decided to create bound buttonholes. This meant creating a facing for the second side to cover the unfinished buttonhole seams on that side. They turned out reasonably well.

Last thing – add buttons to both sides.

We’ve a second class coming Thursday but I’ve got appointments during the morning so I finished the jacket today. I’ll still go to class to show off my completed jacket and to socialize with the other gals.