The Jacket That Makes Me Want To Sing Billy Joel Songs

You know what's the best?  When you go to make a certain pattern only to find out that you've already traced and cut out the right size.  It's almost as good as when you put on an old coat, only to find five dollars in the pocket.  Score!

Lucky for me, that's just what happened when I took out the Uptown Girl Jacket pattern to make a new coat for O.  "Past Carolyn" obviously knew that "Present Carolyn" was going to want to make this for three year old O and therefore kindly traced and cut out the correct size.  Thanks, "Past Carolyn."  You're the best!

Since the pattern pieces were all cut out, all that I had to do was choose which fabrics to use.  For the outside I chose some white cotton shirting that has little chartreuse dots on it. I originally bought this fabric online intending to make a blouse for myself but I also originally thought that the dots were yellow and I didn't discover that they're more on the green side until they arrived on my doorstep. Oh well.  That's just the reality of buying fabric online sometimes.  For the lining I used some Robert Kaufman cotton lawn leftover from this project.  Unfortunately, I didn't have enough to line the entire jacket so I chose to just cut those pieces that would show when the coat was buttoned up in the cotton lawn and I cut those pieces that wouldn't show in the same fabric as the outside.

The last time I made this coat, I lined it with fleece to make it a bit warmer and therefore more wearable, but this time I chose to quilt the outer layer to add some warmth (inspired by this fantastic little coat).  Can I just say that quilting children's clothes in an awesome way to use up leftover pieces of batting from past quilt projects?  Now quilting each piece definitely added to the time that it took to make this project, but fortunately this is an amazingly simple little jacket to put together.  Just sew the outside pieces together, sew the lining pieces together, sew the two together, turn them inside out, bada-bing, bada-boom, you basically have a jacket.

But best of all is that you have a kid who loves her new jacket (despite what these faces may lead you to believe).

As I was trying it on O, I asked her if she would wear this and she replied, "Oh yes.  I'll definitely wear my new coat."

And this momma is definitely glad to hear that.

Pattern: Uptown Girl Jacket by Make It Perfect
Size: Size 3 (given that O turns four in about four months and that this jacket is still a bit large on her, I'm thinking that this pattern runs a bit big)
Modifications:  Since I quilted the outer layer of the coat, I left off all of the interfacing that it called for. I also did this with my past version of the coat that I lined with fleece.