i made a quilted jacket and you can too~

I made one of those fancy shmancy quilted jackets with minimal quilting experience and you can too! And honestly if I can do it, you sure can.

Tip 1: balloon up your confidence. You’ve decided to make it so you can. When it comes down to it, the biggest hurdle is persevering through the boring bits and understanding that it will take longer than you think.

Tip 2: research research research. For me, I had tried out some small quilting projects and playing around with the idea of a quilted garment for a little while, but what got me going finally was the Love to Sew podcast episode deep diving into the quilted jacket process. I love their blog posts for each episode, it makes it much easier to follow along since sewing is such a visual medium. This Seamwork article also has some good ideas. Honestly, just browse through pinterest and click through to all the sewing blogs and learn through immersion. And then if you’re like me, don’t take any notes and just wing it based on what you vaguely remember.

Tip 3: speaking of pinterest, collect all your inspo in one location. Find your favorite quilted jackets (or just quilts) and put them all in one pinterest board or print them out or whatever. Then, figure out why you like each one and what links them together. Now you can figure out your color palette and quilting pattern you may or may not need. Trust me, you need a visual plan. My first experiment was crazy quilt style and I hated it. My second experiment was a slightly more intentional hexagon flower pattern and I hated it again. Then I found this Suzy Quilts post about her gradient quilt jacket and felt a little more confident in a design.

Tip 4: use fabric scraps with a similar weight. You don’t want to try to piece together a flimsy piece of silk and a heavy wool. (am I an idiot for doing this? yes.) Interline your lighter fabrics so they aren’t so wibbly wobbly. It will also help your fabric lay nicer and stay more even.

Tip 5: embrace imperfection. If you’re still here, this is probably your first or second quilting project. It’s not going to be perfect. You probably don’t have the most ideal cutting or layout tools and that’s okay. No one has yelled at me about my seams not meeting perfectly or every row being perfectly even. You might be writing out that exact complaint in a comment right now, but don’t worry I’ll just delete it so I’m still right~

Tip 6: embrace your scraps bin, even for the insides. You don’t have to use proper quilting batting and keep in mind how thick and fluffy you want your jacket to be. I personally used two layers of leftover cotton flannel as the batting and I wear this jacket in Indiana winters and stay nice and warm. I mean, except for the fact that it doesn’t have a closure which leads me to—

Tip 7: Finish it maybe. This is a “do what I say and not what I do” situation here. I still have a partially machine quilted, partially unfinished hand quilted jacket with no closure. However, I still wear it constantly and trick everyone into thinking I’m wearing a real jacket. Maybe one day I’ll finish it.

I mean, it looks like a finished jacket and yours will too! Quilting is just a long process that you won’t fully comprehend until you do a big quilting project. Literally my only quilting experience before this was an abandoned project and a journal protector [eta: plus a patchwork skirt if that counts] and to be honest, this jacket took so much effort that I thought I was going insane. Mostly because I put a deadline on myself and could barely make it. You don’t have to go insane, though. You have all these handy dandy tips now. Go and make your project with confidence and let me know if any of these tips are actually helpful (pls i rly need the validation).