Cut, sew, quilt, cut, and repeat Brazilian-born sewing blogger, Rachel Pinheiro shares how to use patchwork and quilting when making the Tamarack Jacket from Grainline Studio!
Trend: Denim Patchwork – The Joy Jacket As the dark winter months have officially set in and daylight is limited to lunchtime walks, I began to think about my fashion trend choices for 2021. With lockdown life still a reality for many of us, it’s not been an easy ride. It may feel frivolous to talk about fashion but in reality, the process of choosing what to wear daily can bring a state of normality and grounding and allow us to feel like ourselves! A big part of any sartorial decisions of late for me is comfort, this has been my number one goal, and also adding a little more sense of joy to my sewing.
Time to create And there is much joy to be found in taking the time to make something a little more labour intensive! The pleasure in the process is a century-old art. Quilting and patchwork has always being present in people’s homes but never really at the forefront of fashion trends, until now!
Sustainability It’s back on the agenda with the rise of sustainability at the forefront. Questioning our consumption never has had such a strong drive. We can finally brag, we’ve always been in ‘the-know’! Like me, you probably enjoy using up scraps of fabrics, creating patterns, and the enjoyment of imagination. I wanted to share this project from the perspective of a garment sewer. Quilters have an amazing eye for colour and design complexity, and I wanted to inspire others who perhaps haven’t tried quilting or patchwork yet to give it a go!
Inspiration for quilting and patchwork Using the basics of blocks and the improvtechnique. I love ‘improv- quilting’ where
anything goes. Improv-quilting is as it sounds, a chance to ad-lib and have no expectations of block calculations, accurate measuring or creating deliberate shapes and designs. The block I used is the half triangle.
Using my quilting rule width, I created long rectangular strips, rather than squares, and made neat piles of all three shades of denim. Then I joined two random colours together and trimmed all the squares into the same size forming two quilted tops – one for the body another for the sleeves.
