A Labor of Love - Logan Shacket - Version 2

This version was a labor of love.  It took about 2 days for the quilting.  I love version 1, but there were some adjustments I needed to make and I wanted to use a woven.  It was still a struggle to sew because of the thickness but I am pleased with the outcome.  This shacket weighs a ton 😊.  Even though I have already done a review here - I will do another full review because the sew on this one was completely different.

Quilted Logan Shacket

How I Did It

• Fabric

I am happy to say that everything used for this project came from my stash. 

Because I loved the quilted fabric I used with version 1, I wanted to use another quilted fabric that used a woven fabric as its base.  I went searching at online fabric retailers and wasn't willing to pay the price, besides they did not have the color selection I wanted.

Out of frustration I went looking at my own rather large fabric stash trying to find a woven that wasn't already slated for something else.  I did not want to use this striped fabric because I knew I wanted to do straight line quilting and I felt it would interfere with the design of the fabric.  I never even considered matching stripes 😂.

 Since I had nothing else I decided to use it.  I laid the pieces out and I felt I had just enough to make it work.  I have had this fabric in my stash for about 10 or more years and bought it from JoAnn's Fabrics.  I don't know what it was called, but I have seen similar fabric described as Indian woven cotton.  It is a heavy fabric.

I had to used 3 different quilting cotton's as the backing fabric so that I had enough backing fabric and 80/20 batting (cotton/polyester).

Because of the strips, I chose to do a diamond quilting pattern.  I really wanted to replicate the 1" diamond pattern like version 1's fabric, but knew if I wanted to finish this shacket anytime this century, I would have to make the diamond pattern bigger.

I  decided to make my diagonal lines 2" apart.  I laid the pattern piece out on grain on the fashion fabric then cut around the pattern piece about an extra 1/2" to account for shrinkage when I quilted the piece.  Then I laid the pattern piece out on grain on the backing fabric and also cut around the pattern piece an extra 1/2".

I  layered the pieces (backing, batting, then fashion on top).  I drew my lines with a quilting ruler, pinned down the layers, quilted them together, laid the pattern piece on grain back on top of  the quilted layers and cut it out.  I had to attach some pieces of batting together to make it big enough to fit the pattern piece.

Because the fabric unraveled easily, after quilting each pattern piece and cutting each piece down to size, I serged all edges of each pattern piece.  It took about 2 days just to do the quilting of each piece.

 

Pins to Keep Fabric From Shifting

Diagonal Chalk Lines Drawn 2" Apart

Attaching 2 Pieces of Batting to Make it Fit the Pattern Piece

Edges Serged to Keep From Fraying

80/20 Batting (Cotton/Polyester)

Quilting Cotton Backing

 

• Adjustments

• Cut 18 at the neck and graded out to a 22 at the hip
• Shorten the sleeve length 3"
• Shorten the bodice length 3"
• Shorten the length of the side pocket 1" (trying to keep it from peeking out below the hem)
• I also tacked down the pocket in several places on the front bodice.
• Shorten the length of the front pocket 2" but on the next one will only shorten 1".  Thought I had the perfect length but forgot I had to fold down the top of the pocket.
• Shortened the fold of the top pocket to 1/2 the fold size to compensate shortening the pocket 1" too much.
• Added binding/twill tape to bottom edges, front facings, and bottom of sleeve edges.
• To sew the buttonholes on this thick fabric (2 layers of thick fashion fabric, 2 layers of batting, and 2 layers of quilting cotton),  I had to make some machine adjustments.
• I decreased the foot pressure to -4
• I used a knit buttonhole
• To fill in the area of the knit buttonhole I used a 12wt cotton thread from Sulky
• Had to put the bulk of the fabric to the left of the needle so the buttonhole pull down lever would not be impeded by the fabric
• Eliminated using the buttonhole stabilizer plate
• Switch to my blue dot bobbin (looser tension)
• Turned off my auto thread cutter (thread cutter doesn't like super thick threads)

• Some Construction Pictures

• I chose not to quilt the back side of the collar and neck band.  I also did not quilt the pockets.  I wanted to reduce bulk in these areas.
• On the bottom hem, the front band facings, and the sleeve hems I added either twill tape or prepackaged binding.
• I still had to make some binding because I didn't have enough of the prepackaged.  To make the binding, I cut 1 7/8" inch bias strips and used my bias tape maker to make the bias trim.
• Because I knew I didn't want to fight with trying to do a double turn with the thick layers,  I chose instead to cover them with the bias/twill tape and turned a single layer (the length of what the double fold would have been).

You Can See Where I Forgot to Cut the Bottom Cotton Layer a Bit Bigger Than the Pattern

Making Bias Tape

• Some Finished Pictures

Buttons from Hobby Lobby

Conclusion

This was a true labor of love.  I had to take some days off in between to give myself a break but it was well work it.  I love the color explosion of the fabric and love the shaping of the of the back yoke.  This pattern is an easy sew that I believe any confident beginner will be able to tackle.

I do plan to make this one more time with one of the recommended fabrics and no extras 😂.

What's Next

I believe it will be some lounge wear unless I get distracted and change my mind again 😁.