Making the Tamarack Jacket

Howdy folks!

We are back from an epic trip to the US and it was the most tremendous fun. We toured Florida, taking in Miami, Orlando, the florida keys, the Everglades, Tallahassee and then on to Louisiana and the truly wonderful New Orleans and finally 3 weeks in Houston. The thing about Texas is that as well as our youngest son being there, by coincidence he was posted to an area called Sugar Land and just down the road is my old friend Sylvi. Let me tell you about her. We met in around 2007 in Paris, both expat wives with husbands working crazy jobs and kids of around the same age. We had just moved from a 4 year posting in Moscow and Paris was a whole new world for me and my family. Sylvi invited me for a coffee at her home and I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday…She opened the door and I stepped into a hallway in which was hanging a large quilt of cowboy boot blocks. I took off my shoes and thought that it was interesting, but then I walked into the living room and there were a whole host of the most beautiful brightly coloured quilts with bold prints and vibrant patterns on. I was mesmerised. Sylvi explained that she had lived for seven years in Alaska and there wasn’t much to do there, so she learned how to quilt. By the end of the coffee morning, I asked ‘will you teach me?’ and so I learned from a master how to make patchwork quilts and it was a game changer for me. Sylvi got a small group of ladies together for a lesson and I saw for the first time, a pile of fat quarters, a rotary cutter and mat. I was smitten. Sylvi taught us to make a sampler quilt, learning new techniques for each block with cutting and piecing. Once the 9 blocks were done, Sylvi introduced us free motion quilting - I took it and ran with the whole thing. Mind you, Sylvi was a tough teacher, instilling in me the idea that perfect points and neat blocks were essential to the whole and unpicking was perfectly normal and not to scimped over. It was a long time ago now and many quilts later she remains always my inspiration. As expat lives go, inevitably we all got moved on, us to Stockholm and Sylvi to Houston. I visited her there twice, going to the annual quilt market show there and continuing to be inspired by her fantastic appliqué quilts.

When our son got posted to Houston with his work, I couldn’t believe it and so the last few weeks I have been able to spend some days with my old friend and explore her sewing room. It is always so wonderful when you are reunited after a few years with an old friend and it feels like you just instantly pick up where you left off. We decided to make a project and as quilted jackets are currently on trend, we ordered the Tamarack Jacket pattern and set to work.

This is a popular pattern by Grainline Studio which is well documented on the internet. It has it’s own hashtag on instagram and there are a series of great step by step video tutorials to accompany the project on youtube, that tells you pretty much everything you need to know (I’ll put a link at the end of this post). It was easy to get started.

Sylvi is a huge Kaffe Fassett fan and as the former owner of sewcolorful.com she has a whole collection of fabrics to draw upon. I saw her scrap baskets - wonderfully organised by colour and decided straight away to make a ‘green’ floral jacket with patched pieces from this plastic box.

I wanted to have some purple running through it all, to match with an amethyst pendant I have and because Green and Purple are just so good together and it is such a change from my normal go to colours of red and blue. I had also recently chosen a green handbag for my birthday so it would all go together nicely. I picked out pieces from the box that looked as if they would meld together and spray starched them and just cut out random shapes trying to make the best use of the prints and use up these scraps.

It came together over a couple of days as I made panels to accommodate the size of the jacket pattern pieces.

Once the panels were done, I did deviate from the instructions a little. On the video tutorial they cut out the pattern pieces, wadding and lining and then quilted them - but Sylvi and I decided that it would be better to just quilt the panels and then cut out the shaped sections of the jacket.

It is worth too, to take some time with the front panels especially to make sure you don’t have potentially clashing designs on the fabrics although my pieces were a little bigger than required so I felt I could move the pattern tissue around on the panel to see where it looked best.

For the lining I chose a vibrant blueberry colour fabric from Sylvi’s stash that seemed to bring out the colours of the huge blooms and floral motifs of the outer jacket fabric.

Sylvi recommended using a spray baste to fix the layers together and keep everything in place for the quilting process and we decided upon a fairly traditional cross hatching design - the fabric is now such a riot of colour and pattern that anything more fancy would seem just a waste of time. Then I set to work to cut out the two fronts, one back and two sleeves. I am still on a steep learning curve with dressmaking but I do know enough now to know that I always need to shorten the sleeves for me (I am only 5’2”) and I also made the decision to ditch the curved hems and make it altogether more boxy so that I could wear it with my denim skirt as well as jeans. I was also under a little time pressure as our flights home were looming. Altering the hemline meant that I just bound the whole thing once the jacket was constructed. I also decided against any kind of pocket as it would only distract from the eye-catching patchwork fabric. It was really so quick to construct.

I finished the binding by hand, because I just think it looks so much more professional and I added tie fastenings after browsing images on the internet and rather liking this summer fashion

I can honestly say I was rather stunned when it was done. I mean it really is so striking and comfortable and fun and completely made out of scraps and I love it so much.

Couldn’t resist a posed pic with one of Sylvi’s fabulous vintage sewing machines!

I think what this has really shown me is that scraps can be used in a way that gives them a life - it is so easy to just discard bits of fabric, but seriously I have a whole beautiful jacket and barely a dent on Sylvi’s scrap basket! There does seem to be a fashion for this kind of jacket at the moment but I would love it whatever. We will be going to Houston again next year and having seen the red scrap basket, it will definitely be a ‘red’ one next time!!!!

Since being home over the last couple of days, I cannot get over the contrast in the landscapes - it was winter when we left for our trip and Texas is quite different with its dusty and heat soaked plains. Now it is Spring in England and everything is so green and fresh and pops of colour are appearing everywhere and my spring wardrobe is looking rather ready to go.

You can find the pattern for the Tamarack Jacket here

You can find the videos here