I am pretty excited about my latest make the Hampton Jeans Jacket! I have been wanting a denim jacket since I wore one for my friends wedding a few years ago. When I saw Anna’s tester version  6 months ago I was inspired! I knew I needed to make a version using the denim gifted to me by the lovely Blogless Anna during our Melbourne holiday last year.

Alina the pattern designer of the Hampton Jeans Jacket recommends making a muslin first. As It is a style designed to be close-fitting, yet roomy enough to wear over a couple of light layers or a thin sweater. I didn’t make a muslin as I generally wear jackets open so I knew It wouldn’t matter if it was a little bit snug. I cut a size 12 based on my bust measurements.

This project is one that I knew would be a labour of love. I set up three machines dedicated to making this jacket. My Brother overlocker was threaded with matching overlocking thread, my Bernette 48 served as a straight stitcher and my Bernina 830 was threaded for topstitching. If you have multiple machines it makes a project like this a lot easier!

I prewashed the fabric, cut out the pieces and treated them with a tea dye treatment. I left the natural dye from 15 tea bags seep into the fabric for half a day. Once dry I didn’t notice a difference with the colour of the fabric. Washing the fabric after dyeing caused a lot of fraying so I decided that any additional dyeing would be better after finishing the jacket.

To construct the jacket I followed Alina’s Hampton’s Jeans Jacket sew-along. The instructions tell you to either use flat felt seams or faux felt seams. I opted for faux felt seams as I didn’t want to put any additional stress on my sewing machines with any extra thickness from the flat felt seams.

It was my first time making welt pockets! I was surprised how easy they are and how awesome they look. I loved topstitching around the pocket to really show off the detail. The pocket bag comes together really neatly too.

This may be my most professional make to date due to the number of pieces and the amount of visible topstitching. This jacket took around 20 hours to complete. I spent a lot of time using my seam ripper as I made a couple of silly mistakes and had a few topstitching issues. I’m excited that my sewing pins now have a permanent place to call home.