Mermaid Lagoon Jacket

Pattern

Any jacket pattern that you know fits you, as long as it has either no collar or a mandarin collar, set in sleeves, and no lapels.  A back yoke is desirable, but not necessary.  This pattern, available online,  will require minor adjustments but can be used as a good format for the basic jacket.

Great Copy Patterns: View A of www.greatcopy.com 

Fabrics

Preferably batiks in misty green and blue and pastel colors. You will need more than your jacket pattern says, probably about twice as much fabric as your jacket calls for, because we will be strip piecing several colors together to make the fabric for the sleeves and body of the jacket.

You will need:

• at least THREE yards of your main jacket fabric, preferably in sea-green/misty blue colors;
• 1/4-1/3 yds each of 10-12 additional pieces in colors that go with your main jacket fabric
• fabric for seaweed, treasure chest, and rocks on the bottom of the ocean, and
• a small amount of flesh-toned fabric or finely woven white fabric for the mermaids.
• Lining fabric in the amount called for in your pattern.

Lightweight cotton batting, like Hobbs Thermore, Fairfield Cotton Classic, or Quilter’s Dream Cotton Select. You will need enough to satisfy lining requirements

Other Supplies

• sewing machine, foot pedal & cord
• darning foot
• appliqué foot
• regular foot
• regular needles and topstitching needles for sewing machines; the topstitching needles are by Schmetz, System 130N, SIZE 100 or 110. These needles are usually only available at stores that sell embroidery sewing machines.
• freezer paper (from the grocery store)
• tracing paper (the kind you can see through, not dressmaker’s carbon)
• big glue stick
• neutral thread color for piecing
• Invisible thread for appliqué - (Wonder Thread™, .004 mm)
• metallic and/or rayon threads to make mermaid hair, sliver thread (the flat tinsel-like thread, the best kind is by Superior Threads) to add sparkle to your quilting
• embroidery hoop - a skinny flat one designed for machine embroidery, about 6-8"
• Sewer’s Ease™, Sewer’s Aide™ or Dri-Flo™ (clear fluid for lubricating thread) ; small piece of moleskin This is an adhesive backed fuzzy fabric you can stick to your sewing machine right before the thread goes to the needle, if there is such a place on your machine. (Moleskin is sold as Dr. Scholl's Foot Padding in the foot care section of drug stores.)
• scissors for paper and fabric
• black fine line Pigma™ permanent fabric marker - black (.01 size for fabric works very well)
• Ultra Fine Sharpie™ permanent marker (available at Office Depot)
• Steam a Seam II Lite™ (very nice lightweight fusible webbing),  WonderUnder™ or Steam-a -Seam II™ if you cannot find Steam a Seam II Lite™.
• Solvy™ comes in a package, made by Sulky.  Get the regular or heavy-weight, NOT the Ultra Solvy. There are other water solubles that will work, such as DSV or Aqua Solv.  All of these are clear plastic films that dissolve in water.
• White Totally Stable™ (it also comes in black. Don’t get that!) This is a heat-sensitive stabilizer that comes in a package, made by Sulky. You will need enough to do your two front yokes and your back yokes.  One package should be sufficient.
• pencil
• stiletto, if you have one
• spray starch
• Scotch tape
• seam ripper, pins,
• rotary cutter, board, and ruler
• iron and ironing surface
• pastel chalks (the chalky kind, not the oil-based kind) and/or fabric paints (preferably transparent Setacolors™ by Pebeo) in flesh tone and mermaid scale colors.
• 4 mm silk ribbons in various shades of green and blue for making seaweed and jacket ties
• freshwater pearl beads, small round glass beads like air bubbles in a couple of sizes (the silver lined beads work well) and beads of various sizes and colors to make jewels for the treasure chest; pearl and other very small fish beads or fetishes, shell beads or buttons, anything that looks like marine life to embellish your underwater scene and to use as decorations for the ties for the jacket
• Anything else your individual pattern requires