Indian patchwork jacket

So, I made a jacket! the beauty of which is all due to the magnificent fabric. Which has been recycled, and recycled again. To explain…

… so many years ago, like fairly early on in our marriage I think; we bought a patchwork wall hanging at one of those stores that sells all sorts of random imported things, I’m pretty sure it was in Margaret River actually. Definitely somewhere down south anyway. We had it hanging on the wall for years. I’ve always loved the beauty in each of its amazing little patches, each one I imagined was once part of a much loved and cherished sari once upon a time. Lots of the patches were very fragile and there were missing and broken beads and sequins, and worn frayed patches everywhere. The patchwork pieces were united by a sort of “hank” of red thread that wound its way through the patches, dividing and bordering them all. The red hank was bound to the piece by a fairly roughly stitched length of black cord. The wall hanging was backed with plain red cotton, and the same stuff bordered the piece as a whole, roughly and loosely stitched on in HUGE stitches.

Side note that adds nothing to the sewing story but says something about Australia; several times during its time on the wall I took it down for dusting, only to discover large spiders, and nests of spiders hiding behind it. Such is life here! I would brush it down outside into the garden – never kill a spider! spot clean any little eggs off, and hang it up again.

At some point I got a little tired of it, and took it down, folded it carefully and stuck it in the linen cupboard. I thought I’d hang it up again someday, but never did. Every time I sorted through the linen cupboard I’d think, hmmm maybe I’ll turn it into a little jacket one day, then would I re-fold it and stick it back in.

Anyway, obviously and anti-climactically; that day finally came! I got a copy of the FibreMood Molly jacket pattern, a boxy little thing with patch pockets. The instructions assume you’re making a double layered jacket with the potential to be reversible, with the edges bound with bias binding for a perfectly reversible finish.

It was actually touch and go as to whether the pattern was going to fit onto the patchwork piece! I printed out the pattern, and taped extra pages to the back centreline, and also traced out another front, sleeve and pocket piece each, so I could lay the pieces down onto the patchwork piece to be absolutely sure. After I’d removed the red border from the outer edge, I just managed to squeeze the pattern pieces out, with literally nothing to spare between the pieces for the most part! Honestly I couldn’t believe it… it was like it was meant to be! I know I probably say that a lot, because a lot of the time I will not cut out a thing until I’ve found a piece of fabric for it where there are basically NO leftovers, but this was the tightest pattern layout I’ve had in a long time… almost like the patchwork piece was made specifically for this pattern!

Cutting out was quite a challenge too… lots of the sari pieces were SO fragile that they had been literally glued to a piece of cloth underneath, for stability I suppose. Which made it unforgivingly stiff and inflexible in spots. Also, I had to temporarily remove beads etc. from some of the more heavily beaded bits just so I could cut, and later seam, the jacket together. I also removed all the beads from the seam allowances and saved them, to stitch on later and fill some of the barer gaps where beads had been lost over the years.

For the bias bound edging, I started by pieces as much of the red backing as I could for the edging, and managed to bind the top of the pockets with this. Once I’d joined the jacket though and got to the stage of edging the sleeves and long edge of the jacket, I realised it was going to be absolutely impossible to get together enough red leftovers from the scraps to do these too… so I found a length of dark red poplin from my stash and used this instead. I considered unpicking the red from the top of the pockets and using the dark red poplin to edge these too, but decided I liked it just the way it was! Perfectly imperfect!

For closure… obviously buttonholes were a complete impossibility, so I settled upon snaps. I kinda feel like these do look a little jarring and incongruous, but hey, they’re fine for the moment. If I’m feeling enthusiastic one of these days I might just remove them and add some bias fabric loops and small unobtrusive buttons inside the bias bound edge, which would probably look nicer.

Once I’d finished the jacket, I hand stitched on all the beads and sequins that I’d managed to save.

I’m so glad I managed to make something with this piece after all, and something that I think shows off the unique beauty of these precious scraps once again!