Sew Saturday; Falling leaves jacket

Wow! I am posting on the making of my awesome fall jacket today. I will admit that it's exciting for me to blog about this, because it was one of those blood, sweat, tears kinds of projects.

As my inspiration, about two years ago I bought a back issue of Burday, November, 2009 for the quilted jacket the woman is wearing in the bohemian section. I don't buy whole issues for one pattern, well, I guess I do, actually. For my other inspiration I've been reading the Alabama Chanin books, drooling over her online store, and wanted to incorporate some of that into my jacket. So, are you ready for pictures?

This is a picture of my stencil. My fingers were bruised for weeks from using my exacto knife to cut this sucker out. Weeks. Alabama Chanin does stenciling on most of her projects, and the stencil making was way more work than I expected. Good thing or I probably wouldn't have done it and I LOVE the results. Still. I'm thinking twice about making another stencil. I just used posterboard because it's what I had on hand and I made this compulsively. It's how all my really big projects start out.

Stenciling is not as easy as it looks. You have to add the right amount of water so it flows, and you can't accidentally stencil the wrong side of the fabric, and it probably helps if you have a stencil brush, which I didn't, because you know, that's what people who plan projects have. It took me a long time to stencil. You have to glue the stencil down, wait for the paint to dry, then move the stencil. Can't believe how long this took me, but hey, I wasn't writing, so may as well make a coat, right? Right. 

 This is me pinning the pieces together on my body form to make sure the thing fit. That is baby helping me because it's what she does.

The pattern calls for quilted material but I didn't have quilted material. I had an old London Fog coat I thrifted because it was such a fantastic pecan color, and a linen/silk suit I thrifted because it was such a nice chocolate color. I also had chocolate fabric paint from the fabric store. I put thinsulate between the layers and quilted it on my machine, following the contours of the body except on the chocolate brown trim which I made in falling leaves designs. The pattern calls for two buttons, but with this extra large one I liked it better with just one. Also. I only had one.

I'm kind of proud of the way that I reused things to create a beautiful new treasure. Also, I'm making a dent in my projects list. Huzzah!

It's something between the wicked queen and a marshmallow coat. I really really love it. Now I'll be sure to have a toasty warm winter. Are you guys ready for winter? Any insane projects you tackled recently?