Rainbow Quilted Nova Jacket

I am in LOVE with this new coat that I made! This is the second real big quilting project that I've ever made, and I went ahead and designed my own quilt pattern for it. I finished it on October 22, 2023. I used the Nova Coat / Jacket pattern, but modified it slightly. I didn't use a lining, opting instead to use a Hong Kong seam to cover up the seams inside of the jacket.

I found this gorgeous pack of fat quarters from The Workroom and just knew I had to make something from it.

I knew that I wanted to make the Nova Jacket, so I took to photoshop and made this little mockup of my plans.

I ended up modifying my pattern a bit to change the angle of the muted rainbow stripe, but otherwise I was really happy with this direction. I then went ahead and did some strip piecing of the colourful fabric, which meant that I didn't sew together dozens of tiny little diamonds, instead I sewed strips of fabric together and then cut them into diamonds afterwards.

Once that was done, I went ahead and made 7 little quilts (2 for the arms, 4 for the front, and 1 for the back). I modified the pattern to only have one pattern piece for the back instead of 3. Then I sewed them all together, and binded the seams inside.

As the pattern calls for a lining, there is some fabric that folds over to meet the lining in the middle. Instead of attaching this to lining, I ironed things flat and hand-stitched it to the inside of the coat.

All of my lining fabrics are linen, and were either leftovers from previous sewing projects, or in the case of the blue I tore apart a skirt that I had made myself that no longer fits me. So all new fabric on the outside, all used and remnant fabric on the inside. I'm very happy with this! I am SO glad to have used the help and research of Kaylin Murray over on her blog - she also made a quilted Nova Coat, and had some excellent resources of two other makers. I was able to really picture exactly how I wanted to put this pattern together that didn't exactly follow the rules.

I am so happy with how this project came out! The result is a rather heavy, nice and cozy fall jacket that feels exactly like wearing a blanket because... it is.