This jacket has been on my (literal) drawing board for a long time. Honestly, I wasn’t sure this would work but my successful fabric sample vest gave me hope. I also decided to videotape the making of this jacket from start to finish. You likely saw this with the video above but below is an in-depth breakdown of the process, including a few statistics and random trivia.

First order of business was to deconstruct the fabric sample book which was riddled with staples and prongs holding its pieces in place. The video only shows the removal of staples on the top layer but I think there were five or six layers. Haha I also had to use a flathead screwdriver for staple/prong removal. Note to self: Buy needle-nose pliers.

Once the fabric was separated from the sample book, I had to remove the adhesive stickers backing each piece. I had to be gentle since excessive leftovers or residue could warp the fabric or be too stiff to sew. With the adhesives removed, I measured and marked off 4 inch squares from the 9 inch rectangle pieces.

Cutting the squares was a welcomed mindless break from the focus and intent required in prior tasks. Once the squares were separated, I had the pleasure of tracing the jacket’s pattern to all 240-ish pieces. It was beyond tedious but the end result rewarded another chance to relax by trimming squares into the marked pattern.

After trimming pattern pieces, I sorted pieces by color for proper orientation with the gradient/ombre effect. The video showed the sorting process, but skipped arranging pieces according to my jacket pattern. Honestly, I felt filming this part would take away from the final product reveal, so I settled with snapping a photo when I was pleased with the design.

Next came the arduous task of sewing all 240-ish pieces together based on the design  created off-camera. It seemed easiest to sew pieces in columns and then sew the columns into panels based on each part of the jacket. Sewing was easily the most time-consuming part of this effort, taking over 8 hours to complete, but the end result was worth it.

There are many things I would do differently if I were selling a garment like this (add a lining, add a collar, add trim to the sleeves, add trim bottom of the jacket, and add pockets) but I am beyond happy with how this turned out. Transforming a fabric sample book turn into this jacket has been magical.

Project Statistics/Trivia:

• 1000 yards of thread went into this jacket.
• 2 fingers were harmed in the making of this jacket.
• 3 sewing pins were harmed in the making of this jacket.
• About 240 pieces were sewn together to create this jacket.
• Raw video footage totaled to roughly 19 hours, which was reduced to a 3 minute time-lapse video.
• Each jacket panel (front left, front right, left sleeve, right sleeve, back) features the pattern moving in a different direction.