Ever since I sewed my first quilt jacket, I knew that I would make another one. But this time, with a proper pattern.

I eventually found just the one I was looking for, with a cropped length and huge pockets: the Ayora Jacket pattern.

I've seen many hacks of this pattern by following the #ayorajacket on Instagram and knew I would find a way to use a thrifted quilt and this pattern.

I had initially planned on using another quilt until I stumbled upon this one on the free shelf of my local thrift store. I figured that since I really wanted to do it right, I would test out the pattern on this free quilt before using my favorite one.

After a couple of sessions of cutting the pattern and laying it out on the quilt, I quickly learned a couple of things about pattern matching and pocket cutting.

It's a fairly simple pattern, especially when you're not sewing your own quilt, but it took me weeks to complete.

In a matter of weeks, I sewed through my finger with my sewing machine, I broke a needle on the serger I got for free on my local Buy Nothing group, and ran out of bias tape after binding the 2 big pockets. I live in a small town, I don't drive to town often and the resources are scarce, so I ordered a proper serger foot, extra needles and more biais tape.

Making, thinking, learning: my favorite pastimes!

I also worked on other projects in parallel, which have pushed the date of completion of this jacket.

But I'm not mad about it. Winter lasted way longer than it should have and it's barely warm enough for me to wear this jacket this week. After shooting this pic, I ran back to the car and changed into a warm wool sweater and a puffer jacket!

Anyhow, I'm in love with my test run and can't wait to make another quilt jacket using my newly repaired and adjusted serger.

I did not pause to take proper process pics but you can check out the "Ayora jacket" highlight on my Instagram profile to follow the progress from start to completion...