Guest Post: Gurusurya Makes a Reversible Ilford

This is a guest post by Gurusurya of @makeeatsleeprepeat

You can shop the Ilford Jacket pattern here.

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I’ve had my eye on the Ilford Jacket for a little while now so when Chelsea messaged me about sewing a feature for Friday Pattern Co. I was excited to finally give it a go!

 

My initial idea was to make a lined and potentially reversible jacket until I want fabric hunting at Modern Domestic and found this beautiful African Kente Cloth textile that was already reversible!  TIP! I was told this fabric was cotton even though I had my doubts, so I washed and dried it before sewing as I do almost all my fabrics and because of the weave structure and the mix of fabric content it got a little wonky in the wash I would recommend hang-drying (maybe cold washing) or dry-cleaning this particular fabric.

 

I chose to make the long version of this jacket with the boxy sleeves I measured for a size XXL but had read that the fit was quite large and I was worried the jacket would look too bulky at that size so I bumped it down to a size XL. That being said, I don’t think I should have sized down because while it fits perfectly with a simple shirt underneath, it will be a bit tight to wear in the winter if I layer it with a sweater. My sleeves also came out a bit long, I like how they look rolled so I won’t change this one but in the future, I will make that adjustment. 

 

In order to make the jacket most convincingly reversible I employed the use of flat felled seams. This allowed me to get the seams to look virtually the same on either side without a lining fabric.  I did, however, sew my sleeves and bottom hems as per the pattern, and thankfully because both sides of this fabric compliment each other it isn’t too distracting on the secondary side.

 

I knew once I got this fabric that I’d like to use the selvage edge as my button placket for the primary side so instead of folding the placket edge under to the “wrong” side, I folded it out (right sides touching) to the front. This worked out really well! 

 

I opted for the oversized pockets for the primary side and a slimmed-down version of the lower rectangular pocket on the secondary side. Because of this, you can see the stitch line from the larger pockets on the secondary side but I thought I could live with that for the trade off of not having to line up the pockets PERFECTLY on each side.

 

lastly, in another effort to increase the reversibility I replaced the buttons with KAMsnaps snaps that have identical caps for the front and back snap covers making the closure placket totally reversible!

 

What a fun pattern to put together, I’m so excited to have this piece in my closet to brighten up the cool months ahead and I can’t wait to experiment with it and all its many configurations in the future!

I was inspired to learn while sewing this project and reading more about Friday Pattern Co. that 5% of all profits are donated to charities and each pattern is associated with a different charity. The Ilford Jacket directly benefits The Trevor Project: a national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people. One more reason to love this pattern and this company! <3