Quilt to gilet
Apparently gilets (or body warmers) are on trend in the northern hemisphere right now. When I wore mine this past season in Australia, I received many compliments from random strangers, so I thought I’d share how I made it, in case you fancy one too!
I used the Fibre Mood Irma bodywarmer as the base, skipping the shoulder trim and patch pockets. The belt was made separately to the quilt (ie without the wadding). You can see how it ties in the video at the bottom of the post. I thought I’d wear it more with the tie, but I tend not to. I think I’d make the belt a little longer next time too.
For the quilted fabric I used a wallhanging version of my Catty Corner pattern. You can read more about the making of the original quilt here and find mockups of the quilt with other fabric lines on my Pinterest page here.
I deliberately placed the pieces on the quilt top to match the placement of the diamond shapes on the front, but that strip of brown down the interior – the vest in reverse (ie back of the quilt) was a happy fluke!
Before we talk about layout, I should also note my quilting approach. I quilted my Catty Corner with a 1” spiral. Make sure you don’t quilt anything more densely than that, as it will shrink the quilt further and make pattern placement difficult.
The image below shows how I placed the pieces on the quilt top. I made the medium – I’m almost 6’ tall with a 106cm/42” bust. Theoretically I should have been making the large for my frame, but the medium turned out to be a better fit for my style.
The medium-size pattern pieces fit within an inch of their lives on the Catty Corner wallhanging, so it’s a great option for sizes XS to M without additional modifications.
Read on for how to achieve the large size…
The medium size on the wallhanging quilt top.
There are points in the quilt instructions where I ask you to trim, so let’s look at what happens if you don’t quite follow that plan.
The quilt image below has only been trimmed from the right hand side of Figure 6 in the pattern. The top has not been trimmed. The additional strips in the top left hand corner would be as per the strips marked on Figure 1, starting with strip 25, then 21, 17, 13, 9, 5 and 1.
The resulting layout will give you enough fabric to cut the large size as shown.
This has been an absolute wardrobe staple for me this winter and a super-easy make. If you’ve been wanting to try a quilt coat but aren’t quite ready to tackle sleeves, this vest is an ideal first step.
Let me know if you give it a try. I’d love to see your versions.
