A little over two years ago when I was only a few months postpartum with my second daughter, I had decided I wanted to make a jacket for my husband for our anniversary.  We had two daughters close together and felt like we were just trying to make it through the day, so making him a jacket felt really intentional and special.  I had seen some sewists online make the Ilford Jacket from Friday Pattern Company for men, and I knew the style of it would be something he’d pick out on his own, so I set my heart on it.  For some reason, I just assumed with ignorance that the sizing must have been non specific to gender.

I’ve been sewing pretty much daily for 5 years now, and back when I made that jacket, my chosen method of sizing choice was pretty chaotic – I’d go with whatever seemed right, versus actually using the sizing chart like I should have.  Well… It turned out that it was a gender specific pattern.  The medium size I chose ended up being more like a small on him, which most certainly was way too small.  You live, you learn!

Ironically, that meant it would fit me!  So not all was lost.  I was (and am) really proud of that jacket.  It was the most technically complex project I had done at that time, so I was glad I knew it could still be enjoyed. But as time went on, I never found myself reaching for it. I think I may have worn it twice in two and a half years.

My husband and I are both very artistically leaning people, and we’re raising our daughters to appreciate and love art in all its forms too.  Our older daughter will sit at the kitchen table for hours and draw our family, rainbows, flowers, animals, you name it.  I’m also unashamedly and embarrassingly bad at pairing down her school work and art work, so we’ve got an overflowing bin of all her creations.  I had been thrifting a month or so ago and found a huge bag of embroidery floss, and it just kind of hit me:  there’s nothing stopping me from transferring her drawings onto something!  It seemed like a much more fun way to preserve her beloved 5 year old handwriting and stick figures with smiley faces.

I sifted through all her drawings to choose a few favorites: all our names, a sweet little drawing of our family, a smiling heart, and a sun with heart eyes. With some wash away stabilizer, I traced all of them before choosing my flosses for each drawing, then started hand embroidering my heart away!

Perhaps its important to mention that I have zero embroidery experience; just an “I bet I can do that” attitude and a hand needle.  I spent a few days doing some stitching here and there, and once they were all finished up, I soaked it to remove the stabilizer, then left it to dry.

What once was a me made jacket begging for some attention became a beautiful work of art – and a joint one at that.  My daughter lights up every time I take it out to wear it, and makes sure to tell anyone and everyone we see while out that they’re her drawings. She usually throws in “mommy made her jacket” too, which is just icing on the already deliciously sweet cake!