"I Love My Daddy" Care Bear Jacket

Here we go... Project Run and Play's Season 10 Sewing Challenge! 

You'll find my Care Bear Jacket entry in the Sew Along Group.  

It is so much fun sharing my ideas and reading about other garments created for each challenge.

The first challenge is 80's Cartoon Inspired.  

I love the soft colors, cuddly fabrics, and positive vibe of the Care Bears.  They were always willing to help each other and solved problems together.

As a child, my 6' 5" son-in-law collected all the Care Bears that are shown in the picture above.

 So I thought he would enjoy seeing

 his daughter become his very own...

 "I Love My Daddy" Care Bear.

These are the fabrics used to make the jacket. Notice that I used WOOL felt. While constructing this jacket, you need to use the highest steam heat setting on your iron. Since you don't want to compress the felt, or have it melt, be sure to use wool felt.

Wool felt can be dry cleaned too. Lastly, the combination of wool felt, fleece, and minky lining will provide the warmth needed for cold Minnesota winters.

This is the pattern that I started with.

Simplicity 1477

Here are some of the changes that I made to the pattern:

• I drafted a different coat front that was double breasted.
• Made a separate front facing 

The pattern pieces I drafted to change the pattern.

• Lined Belly pockets
• Hood has hand embroidery and added felt Care Bear features
• 4 buttons
• Top-stitching at the hem line and on the edges of the jacket
• Bear ears 
• Lengthened the sleeves to make turn up cuffs  
• Though the pattern instructions don't mention it, you must reduce the amount of thickness in every seam allowance anytime you can. I basted each fleece fabric piece to the felt at 4/8 inch and trimmed the excess fleece away to reduce the thickness. I graded the felt seam allowances also.

  

  Grading the seam allowances

The Care Bear were my inspiration, but I didn't want it to look like a costume. So I used the characteristics of the Care Bear cartoon characters that I liked..pastel colors, cuddly fabrics, and positive vibes while designing this jacket. 

The scariest part of sewing this jacket was making the buttonholes. I actually practiced making 10 buttonholes before I was ready to sew them on the jacket. After all the work that went into making this jacket, I DID NOT want to screw up the buttonholes!!

Thank goodness they turned out fine, but I have to share the fact that my heart was pounding while I was sewing them. Two of them were a bit close together, so I used my husband's box cutter with the razor blade in it to cut the fabric.

Smiles,

Deborah