Skip to main content

Made By A Fabricista: Celebrating the Color of the Year with a Quilt Coat

During my first Fabricista post in February 2021, I dedicated a make to the Pantone colors of the year: Illuminating (a yellow) and ultimate gray. I thought it would be fun to continue the tradition and dedicate this February’s make to the 2022 Color of the Year: Very Peri. This marks the first time Pantone has created a color for their Color of the Year series. Blue with violet-red undertones, Very Peri “displays a spritely, joyous attitude and dynamic presence that encourages courageous creativity and imaginative expressions”.

I’ve also been inspired by the recent trend of making quilt coats, so I thought I’d pair the two trends and make my own quilted coat. I’ve always considered myself firmly on team garment sewing, but I thought this was a great opportunity to dabble in quilting. I scoured the Fabric Mart website for ideas and found a really beautiful grape-colored linen which, in my head, was the closest I could get to Very Peri. It’s a yarn-dyed chambray linen and very lightweight, so for the backing, I thought I’d use a heavier weight linen. Pantone creates color palettes for all their colors of the year, and I referenced their Star of the Show palette to pair it with a neutral gray. I went with a midweight gray and off-white printed, rather than dyed, linen. Both of these linens are still available! For the batting, I decided to use a layer of cotton flannel that I have many yards of in the spirit of using what you have.

This time around, I also used Fabric Mart’s thread matching service, which is an absolutely amazing offering. The thread colors matched perfectly! They almost blend too well, but I love how the nearly-invisible thread let’s the texture of the linen do the talking. I highly recommend using their thread-match service, especially if you are picking up fabric with unique colors. They make it so easy.

I went with the Grainger Coat from Muna and Broad, after seeing their co-founder Leila make a chic gray version. Muna and Broad is a modern pattern company that designs for plus-sized bodies. Their sizing ranges from 40-64” bust and 41.5-71.5” hip, and if their size range is too small for you, they will grade your pattern up to your size at no additional cost. At a 42” bust and 45” hip, I fall into their size B and made the pattern accordingly. The coat is designed to be oversized, and I think next time I make the pattern, I’ll try out the size A to see how I like it.

Since I had never quilted any fabric before, I thought I’d try out one-inch squares turned into a diamond shape. Next time, I’ll go with a different pattern or sized squares. I struggled a bit with quilting on my machine because it’s not very large. Even with rolling the fabric, it took considerable effort to manipulate the pieces to get straight and even lines. The linen itself was really easy to cut and sew, and I used spray glue for basting. I also decided to quilt the pockets with straight on squares for a little contrast.

Even though I hit all of my chalked out lines, I felt like the quilting looked off, which I could accept for a first try. On a whim, after I finished quilting, but before I cut out the other pattern pieces, I threw the quilted fabric in the wash and dried it on hot and the crinkling of the linen instantly made it one of my favorite pieces to date. 

The pattern provides instructions for you if you are self-quilting fabric (as opposed to buying pre-quilted), and tells you to cut out pieces 1” larger than the pattern pieces before you quilt. I was less than precise when I cut out my pieces to quilt, but I know my margins were more than 1” and, in some places, at least 2”. However, when I threw the pieces into the dryer and achieved the crinkled look, my fabric had shrunk to just about or slightly smaller than the pattern pieces. Oops! To accommodate this, I shortened the jacket 1” and I was good to go.


I used the sturdier gray linen to create bias binding.

I used half-inch double fold binding to bind the edges of the coat and pockets for contrast, and one inch single fold to bind all of the seams in order to create…

Tada! A completely reversible coat! There weren’t specific instructions on how to create a reversible coat, so I just winged it with what I thought would work well. 

Initially, I imagined this would be a nice lightweight coat for spring, but on the day we took these photos, it was about 35 degrees and I was perfectly comfortable. Because its oversized, I imagine being able to wear this with several well chosen layers for colder weather, and well into spring on its own. 

This is already shaping up to be my most well-prized Fabricista look to date! Have you ever made a quilt coat? Share any lessons you learned while making yours in the comments below! I’d love to hear how it went for you.



Unfortunately Fabric Mart Fabrics sell out quickly!
You can find similar fabrics in the following category LINEN.

Comments

  1. Wow! Beautiful work! It looks fantastic 😊!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks go cozy and cute! I am also hoping to make a quilt coat, hopefully out of a gray and dust rose linen, for a very similar look. Thanks for adding the line about the bias tape! I want to make sure I have enough, but that it’s not too chunky. Enjoy your coat in the fall!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving a comment! All comments are reviewed before posting to help us eliminate spam. Your comment will be posted within 24 hours.

Popular Posts You Might Like

Made By A Fabricista: Did someone say FREE??? All about Free Sewing Patterns

Hi sewing friends! I am SEW excited to share this blog post with you today! This is my fifth post with Fabric Mart since I did a guest post late last year and then joined the blogging team in 2024 but I would say this is the post that 1) I worked the hardest to create, and 2) the one that has me the most excited! Today I am going to talk about FREE sewing patterns, showcase a few free patterns I’ve sewn, and then share some very exciting news at the end of this post about an upcoming! First, let’s talk about free patterns – where they come from, why they exist, and how you can find them. But first, here’s a recent free pattern I sewed. This is the Finn Crop Tee from Petite Stitchery . I used an ITY (Interlock Twist Yarn) for this one and I was able to squeeze it out a yard of a fabric. ITY is one of my favorite fabrics to dress up a t-shirt and it wears well across all seasons. And Fabric Mart gets the most AMAZING designer deadstock designs you will ever see! Petite Stitchery offers

Made By A Fabricista: Well Suited for Fall

Fall is my favorite time of the year! The weather is cooling down and I'm always excited to transition into the cooler weather. I get to create with some of my favorite fabrics and I'm always inspired by all the cool fashion trends for the season. So for this month's fabricista feature I snagged some cool medium-weight twill fabric in a beautiful warm cinnamon color.   This fabric has a medium bottom weight feel to it, great for pants, outerwear, jackets, boiler suits and more. I used a needle suited for medium weighted woven fabrics and my serger for finishing raw edges. The color of this fabric is so warm and inviting. I think it is the perfect color for Fall. I couldn’t wait to create a fall ensemble with this fabric. I chose Simplicity Pattern S9893 because I’ve been dying to create this pattern since it launched. It is a cool cape with cargo pockets, storm flaps, hidden buttons at the shoulder, a collar with button tabs and even more button tabs at the underarm. This c

Made By A Fabricista: From Fabric to Finish Line: Creating My Running Gear

In 2021, I ran my first 5k; I was instantly hooked. I loved the instant sense of accomplishment of crossing the finish line & completing something, but all in all at the time I was absolutely no good at running. Now in 2024, I am an avid runner. I absolutely love running & I still love completing races. It had never crossed my mind to sew any running clothes until lately, but I’m sure glad I did.  On Fabric Mart they had the most amazing windbreaker like animal fabric & I knew it would be a perfect match. For the jacket I decided to block it so that it would give it a bit of extra definition. The actual fabric was really easy to sew with & to cut, however, it was a bit hard to pin & left needle marks within the fabric so I suggest using clips instead. I absolutely loved how it turned out. The pattern that I used for the jacket is a free sewing pattern from Mood Fabrics called the Cory Jacket. It is a fairly simple sew & can be made in a day.  For the shorts, I u