Quilt Reuse: Up-cycled Housecoat

I’m back with another up-cycling post 🙂 It has been a bitterly cold and snowy winter. My apartment is a bit drafty, and since 2021 continues to force me to work from home, I have been getting quite cold. I needed something heavy and formal enough to wear to work remotely. My small but growing pattern stash had a Folkwear pattern for a Turkish Coat that I knew would be perfect for this, as well as a quilt in need of reuse.

Material

Back in 2018, I purchased a light, polyester/cotton blend quilt from Marshalls. For a summer spent working in Washington D.C. the quilt did the trick. After returning home, I had it at the foot of my bed for a while, but I wasn’t thrilled about how it was holding up to repeated abuse from dog claws getting on and off the bed. I put it in my closet for over a year before realizing this would be the perfect use for it.

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I also found an old, corduroy Talbots jumper from sometime in the 90’s that my mother had in the back of her closet. The green color worked well with the grey quilt. Furthermore, I liked how the corduroy could added a more luxurious feel to end product. I decided to use the fabric for the coat borders.

In addition, I had about a yard of a black cotton/polyester blend from Joann in my fabric stash. It was just enough to work well as the border backing.

Method

For the overall construction, I followed the instructions and pattern provided by Folkwear. To be completely honest, I struggled with this pattern at times. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I am a beginner, and have never quilted anything before. The actual construction was not complicated, but you first have to subtract more complicated instructions if you aren’t quilting the fabric yourself.

It comes with three separate instruction manuals for cutting, constructing, and quilting. I found myself having to reference all three manuals at times to complete a single step. Throughout the process, I made a few changes to the pattern to suite my needs, which I will talk about as they come up.

Construction

Step 1 – Preparing the Fabric

I cut out the pattern pieces for the main body of the coat. Since I was using pre-quilted fabric, I had to cut a full two thirds fewer pieces than I might otherwise have had to 😉 Since there was a paisley pattern quilted on the fabric already, I tried to make all of the sections symmetrically patterned which took some planning/thinking during the layout.

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Next, I prepared the fabric for the border pieces. Similarly to when prepping for my other reuse projects, I tried to separate the biggest single piece of fabric from the garment. In this case, I separated the skirt from the top, and removed the pockets and button. I will later attach the pockets into the housecoat (this isn’t part of the pattern, but they recommend it as a possible alteration).

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Step 2 – Constructing the Main Body

I constructed the main body before adjusting the border pattern pieces and cutting them out per the instructions. I took about 2.5″ off of the length of the coat to fit my height (I’m 5’4″). I also decided not to attach pattern piece “C”, which is a small gusset at the bottom front of the coat. I did this for two reasons. First, I did not need the overlap of the two sides of the coat to be super dramatic. However, if you are planning on using this coat as outerwear, I highly suggest you add these pieces as they help keep the coat closed. Second, I didn’t account for the existing quilt pattern when cutting out these pieces. I felt the coat would be more symmetrical and attractive without the small, oddball pieces at the front.

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Step 3 – Constructing/Quilting the Borders

This was my first attempt at quilting anything – ever. I understood the basic principle, but wasn’t confident enough to use the beautiful quilting instructions included in the Folkwear pattern. I instead chose a simple 1.5″ straight line that ran parallel to the wale of the corduroy. I cut out main fabric, backing fabric, and batting for each piece, and then followed the basic construction instructions. When it came time to quilting, however, I simply marked at point in chalk every 1.5″ and topstitched down the fabric at those points.

Step 4 – Attaching the Borders

The process for attaching the borders confused me the most. As I mentioned before, the instructions themselves are very clear. However, they include steps for attaching two quilted sections that yield a beautiful seamless appearance. You have to mentally ignore a few steps if using densely pre-quilted fabric. While sewing, I treated all pieces as if they were not quilted to simplify the process.

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Final Thoughts

I LOVE this coat! It keeps me incredibly warm and I feel so much more put together than when I bundle up in a sweatshirt. I made the medium size, but could have sized down to the ‘slimmer fit’. In the end, however, I like all of the extra fabric to snuggle in. I have yet to attach the pockets I removed from the jumper but definitely plan to soon. I may also add twill tape to the inside seams. Right now, the seam allowance is simply whip stitched to the inside of the coat. It works, but it looks a bit messy.

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My main regret is that the quilt itself is not made of the most durable fabric. It is prone to pilling, as you can see in some of the pictures. However, I will continue to use and love this garment and hopefully it will last plenty more winters.