This past week we finally got snow! Yes! I love snow! 11″ to be exact. Several inches more than predicted but that is fine by me. Once we got the driveway clear, thanks to our snowblower, it was time to take some pictures. Just the day before I finished my Quilted Car Coat. I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

This Car Coat is a sample for the Blackstone Valley Heritage Quilter’s next workshop. I dug deep into my stash for a stack of sweatshirts I had been saving and also found an old quilt top I bought at a sale a number of years ago. Perfect for the coat I wanted to create. I made several quilted jackets YEARS ago but I wanted to update the idea with this one. I wanted a longer car coat length and to use the “found” old quilt top. The sweatshirts didn’t match in color but in size. (You can see the two colors of sweatshirts where the hood meets the neck edge.) I ripped and cut to create my foundation. Then layed out the pieces onto the old quilt top. Played with arrangement. Cut up the quilt….YES, I did and so happy I did. I quilted the cut out top pieces onto the sweatshirt pieces and then pieced it all back together. I even added a hood and covered the seams. I will add pockets next. (I’ll have to unstitch a bit of the side seams to add the pockets, but that is fine by me. I love pockets!)

I even had the perfect feedsack fabric to use as binding that went beautifully with the vintage top. I was a bit nervous to see if I would have enough of the fabric for the binding. I used my trusty bias binding chart I’ve had for years. It is called “Quilter’s Strip Ticket – Yardage Tables” by Lamb Art Press copyright is 1985!! Yes, I’ve had it a few years. It told me if I needed 162″ length of 2 1/4″ wide binding, I would need a 20″ square. Bingo, I had enough!

#1 – Sometimes the smallest piece of fabric can yield big results. The 20″ square of fabric got enough bias binding strips to bind the outside edges of my coat. Check for similar charts, where others have done the math for you! (I don’t think the chart I have is still available.)

This was a great “re-do” / “re-make” / “update” / “repurpose”!! Two old sweatshirts, and old quilt and some time and I now have a beautiful new Quilted Car Coat!

#2 – An old quilt top (some of this one was in sad shape where seams were apart) can be recycled into a different useful item!

in quilting,

Debbie