Making a Quilt Coat with the New Americana Home Decor Fabric -

Hello friends, Mary Burroughs-Mayer from Ember Craft Company back to share my latest make for Riley Blake Designs!

I am ecstatic to get to play with one of the home decor prints from Americana, the latest fabric collection from Lori Holt. This fabric is called Stars and is such a fun cheater print (this is what we call a fabric printed to look like it’s pieced!). You get the complex look of English Paper Piecing without the effort and it’s not nearly as painful to cut into as a hand-sewn quilt.

Now, this is my first time sewing with a home decor fabric. It comes in a 60″ width and has a very lightweight denim feel. Definitely a bit more substantial than, say, a quilting cotton, but it still has a great drape. When I saw this fabric, I knew that I wanted to make it into a quilted coat, and spoiler alert: it did NOT disappoint. I had two options for the binding, but ultimately chose the Sparkle print, also from the Americana Collection (find it here), and used Bee Backgrounds Tiny Circle in Honey for the lining. Don’t you love how the yellow dots in the lining pull in the yellow from the triangles on the front?

A friend of mine recently made the Pixie Peacoat pattern by Twig and Tale (find it here!) and I absolutely loved the look of it. I’ve been itching to make my own, and this felt like the perfect opportunity!

DISCLAIMER: this pattern is not specifically written for using quilted material. I will be sharing some tips and tricks on how I made this throughout this post, but this is not a comprehensive tutorial. If you’d like a complete tutorial on how to make your own quilted Pixie Peacoat, let me know in the comments! We can make that happen!

Before we get started, I want to talk about one complaint I hear a lot about quilt coats: they are stiff! I have two ways to help with that (outside of simply wearing and washing them often!).

Use a soft, drapey batting like bamboo or wool. We are using a bamboo batting from Quilter’s Dream, which is actually a blend of bamboo, silk, cotton, and tencel (find more info about it here) and it is lusciously soft.
Try not to densely quilt your panel/pieces. Donna Larson from Featherbed Quilting (find her work here), helped me choose this Interlocked Orange Peel Pantograph from Karlee Porter Designs (longarm quilters can find it here) and made it larger than I might ordinarily choose for a regular quilt. This spreads out the stitching and keeps the panel more flexible – perfect for this jacket project!

As mentioned earlier, the Pixie Peacoat pattern is not written for quilted fabric, but has a list of materials and pattern pieces for an outer fabric and lining fabric. Now, using a quilt or quilted panel enables you to eliminate cutting the lining and facing fabric pieces.

For this jacket I used the following exterior pattern pieces from the pattern:

2 Front templates (mirror image)
1 Back template
2 Sleeve templates (mirror image)
2 Round Hood templates (mirror image)
1 Center Hood Panel template.

I was able to cut these pieces in a Size H from a 60″ x 72″ quilted panel. I even had a bit leftover for an additional small bag project – more on that soon!

Using quilted fabric helps eliminate those lining pieces BUT does create a problem with unfinished edges. To solve this, I used lots and lots of binding: approximately 10 linear yards (or 360 inches) of 2.5″ wide bias binding. This requires just under 1 yard of fabric to make yourself. Now, this does have to be binding cut on the bias to enable it to stretch around the curved edges of the hood and rounded corners of the jacket. A great tutorial to make your own bias binding can be found here. You can also buy premade bias binding from a fantastic small business called Bessie Pearl here!

As you can imagine, that is a boatload of binding. As a quilter, I don’t mind binding, but one way I’ve found to make it a little more interesting is to add a layer of Vintage Trim. This is such a fun ric-rac product, also by Lori Holt (details can be found here), that adds a scalloped edge. I’m using the Cottage color in the large size for this and it’s perfect. I’m only using this on the outer seams: along the hood as shown below, the sleeve edges and the exterior of the jacket.

One side effect of using the trim on the outside of the jacket is having to hand-finish the binding on the interior of the jacket. Now, I love using 12 wt. Aurifil Thread for big stitch binding on my quilts, why not try this on my quilted jacket? This is shade 2845, Light Juniper, and can be purchased here. It’s a pretty good match for the Cottage Vintage Trim and other shades of turquoise in Lori Holt’s fabric lines.

For the closures, I chose to use the button loops from the pattern and found these great, big, wooden buttons at my local craft shop. They are about 1 1/2″ wide and definitely a statement. I attached them with the same Aurifil 12 wt. thread I used for the binding, and I love that little pop of turquoise when you look closely.

Overall, the Pixie Peacoat was the perfect pattern to adapt to using quilted material. I had an absolute blast playing with this one for myself, and I can guarantee it won’t be my last! Don’t forget to let me know in the comments if you’d like to see a full tutorial to make a quilted coat like this for yourself. I’d love to show you how!