A Special Bomber Jacket

The Amelia Bomber Jacket

This was a special project! A Very special project.

My dad passed away in February 2020 and for those that don’t know me I was a Daddies girl, it was really tough. I was lucky though, I had my Step-mum Monica and my sister Laura to get me through it. 

After a while Monica started to sift through Dad’s Mountains of clothes, he liked clothes!

I was passed bags of his shirts, I actually think I asked for them but out of them all three of them stood out to me as they were silk shirts. These were Thai silk shirts Dad had made in Thailand. 

I knew I wanted to make something special with them, and I wanted to make it for my sister. I decided to create a silk bomber jacket. I was thinking to have the three combined shirts as the outer fabric, but soon realised that they didn’t really go together in a way that would look amazing. So I decided to choose a different fabric for the outside and these would be a perfect lining fabric.

The Amelia Bomber jacket by Wardrobe by Me was the perfect pattern.

I decided to make this as a xmas gift but gave myself plenty of time, making it over a few months leading up.

The outer fabric I choose was a little bit sparkly, a denim like stretch fabric and it was perfect but I wanted to make this extra special and decided the back needed some detail. After a bit of investigating, looking at pre-made patches and embroidery companies, I remembered Ewa Morawski. Ewa is a fabric artist based at Ocean Studios and has run classes for me before. I went to her. We discussed what I was after and she got making, with a few scraps of the shirt fabric, and image of what I was after with some gorgeous thread she was well away. Ewa decided to do a practice piece first and then we decided it would be best for her to embroider direct onto the back piece of the jacket.

I just want to make clear Ewa free machine embroidered this fishing fly from a photo, she took that image in her mind a drew it onto the fabric using different threads. This wasn't sewn using an embroidery machine. A very talented artist. 

As I said before I was taking my time, I got the fabric all cut out. While I was choosing what parts of the shirts to position where I decided to use the sleeves as the sleeves of the lining, one from each of the burgundy shirts. I had to take off the cuffs as they were quite stiff, this meant that the sleeves weren’t quite long enough so I sewed a strip of fabric from the opposite shirt on the end of each sleeve, I decided to leave the sleeve placket and button on each sleeve just so it was more of the original garment.

The instructions with this pattern were fantastic. I don’t think there was any part of this sew that didn’t go right… oh actually sewing the facing all the around the jacket to the lining didn’t quite line up but my trustee teacher helped with that part and just got me all lined up again.

I used a ribbing with a silver line in it for the cuffs and hem band with really went well with the whole fabric and sparkle but this did mean I had to jiggle about the hem as I didn’t have the double width ribbing as the instructions said but it worked out in the end perfectly.

It really did sew up very well and with all the pieces including the back part all done, I finished the jacket.

This was my absolute favourite achievement to date, I think a combination of the pattern and fabric was absolutely perfect and with the added sentimental part to this jacket it really was a very special jacket.

My sister was happily surprised with a few tears on Christmas day when she opened it and I understand even with Lockdown she has been wearing it to every Zoom party possible so she can show it off. I think she liked it.

Sewing something with such an emotional tie really, really was a lovely project, a memory project but something that can be worn and cherished.

Notes of the pattern

Outter fabric - https://www.makeat140.co.uk/collections/jersey-fabrics/products/torressparklestretchydenimjersey

Cuffs - https://www.makeat140.co.uk/collections/jersey-fabrics/products/blacksilverlurexribbingbypoppy

Jacket Pattern - https://www.makeat140.co.uk/products/ameliabomberjacket?_pos=1&_sid=a4563ee47&_ss=r

Embroidery – A fishing fly by Artist Ewa Morawski

Facebook page here  https://www.facebook.com/ewamorawskitextiles/

This was made in 2020 and gifted that Xmas but has taken me a while to post about it. I'm not sure I was ready to share, but I am now. I hope you have enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed sewing and gifting.