Make Your Dream Denim Jacket (Hand Sewing & Machine Sewing Tutorial)

I sewed this denim jacket featuring a back panel portrait of Frida Kahlo, flower-power shoulders, custom lining elements and two sew-on patches. This was a blast to create! I largely followed pattern instructions but had to give it a little extra zazzle. I'll walk you through all of my pattern hacks in this tutorial. This is an intermediate/advanced project if you decide to sew your own jacket but these steps (adding flowers, adding patches) can also be used by a complete beginner sewist on an upcycled jacket.

Materials

• Denim Jacket pattern (I used Audrey by Seamwork)
• Denim fabric
• secondary fabric for linings
• toile/practice fabric (optional)
• t-shirt for panel (I purchased my Frida t-shirt from the clearance rack of a local superstore)
• assorted artificial flowers (i purchased mine on sale at a local superstore)
• thread for top stitching, matching denim, matching patches
• denim rivet buttons
• deer patch
• skull patch

General Sewing Tools

• sewing machine
• serger
• hand sewing needle
• 100/16 denim needles
• Xacto blade
• thread snips
• Tweezers
• thimble
• hammer

I used the Audrey pattern from Seamwork. I enjoyed this pattern for a lot of reasons; Seamwork provides A0 files that I can use on my sewing projector. This saves me the step of having to print and assemble the pages or have them printed by a specialty printer.

Sewing with projectors is getting a lot of traction in the hobbyist sewing communities that I'm part of. There are a lot of great tutorials about how to set up and use a projector this way. Other than the basic calibration and getting to know your machine, the only other piece of advice I have is to print out the pattern pieces page and the cutting layout you'll need. I find that this helps me stay organized as I'm tracing and cutting out my pieces. I typically draw them right onto my fabric with either washable marker or Sharpie, depending on the fabric. The lines don't typically show in the finished product as many of these are hidden in seam allowance.

I cut out all pattern pieces from the denim except Q & R. These are the pocket linings. I cut these out in the red cotton fabric I'd picked out. Frida was known to always wear bright colors and favored a bold red lip, so I thought it was fitting. I also cut out an F pattern piece, the back yoke for the Audrey, in red to act as an upper lining.

For the Frida panel there was a lot of eyeballing as you can see in the last few pictures. I laid the back piece over the top of the t-shirt and traced around the denim piece. Once I was happy with the layout I cut out the t-shirt. I wanted Frida to be straight down the middle and had to rethink the layout before cutting.

Follow the instructions on your chosen pattern and sew up your jacket. This is the section where I'll show you the construction things I did differently from the pattern. These hacks include faux welt pockets, a back lining and a hanging loop in the collar.

Yes, I made faux welt pockets! During my test I couldn't quite master the welt pockets in a way that I was happy with. I'd also read that the Audrey pocket openings can feel a bit small and several sewists recommended widening those pocket openings and I love big pockets.

For the faux welt I took a rectangle of fabric and folded it in half, right sides together. I eyeballed the size as a little longer than the length of the welt marking and twice as wide. Once it was sew right sides together I flipped it right sides out. There was then a long raw edge that I lined up with the bottom of the welt marking and sewed down with the raw edge pointed up toward the welt marking. With that stitch line in place I then flipped the rectangle of fabric over and pressed it in place. This made the bottom edge a finished edge and enclosed that raw edge under the faux welt. I then sewed down all sides, completing the faux welt.

To make the actual pocket interior easy I sewed together Q & R and then laid them exactly where the pattern had them. I folded the raw side edges in a few times to encase both raw fabric edges together and form the inseam pocket. This just made giant rectangular pockets which are big enough to hold an 8-pan eye shadow palette among other things. The inseam placement is also, in my opinion, more comfortable that the traditional welt pocket placement. Other than the side seam opening, I sewed the pockets as directed. The bottom edge and the edge near the buttons gets caught in those seam allowances which helps those giant pockets stay in place.

There there's the lining for the back yoke. That's easy. Sew it to the back yoke, wrong sides together, at 3/8". This'll get caught in the regular 5/8" seam on the Audrey jacket. Use your judgement on your garment based on the required seam allowances.

My last pattern hack that I loved was a loop for hanging the jacket sandwiched in the finishing of the collar. This is a detail I've seen on older denim jackets that I think is clever. I took a small rectangular scrap of fabric and folded the long ends in on themselves. It was a teeny piece of fabric but I liked the size. I carefully sewed down the length to enclose the raw edge. once it was sewn up I pinned it in place, cut the excess and sewed it in place.

I don't know what made me think of flowers as power shoulders for this jacket, but once I had the idea I couldn't let it go. To add the flowers but keep the jacket easy to wash I sewed the flowers onto a rectangle of denim.

First I cut a rectangle of denim, then folded 1/4" to the wrong side and sewed it down, creating a finished edge all the way around. To prep the flowers I started to clip them all off but after a few I realized that the heads could be tugged off by hand rather than cutting. This pulling off the flower heads made the process faster as I realized during cutting that some of the flowers were reinforced by floral wire.

Once the flowers were all pulled off the stems I then laid out my flowers and hand-sewed them into place. I threaded a hand sewing needle and doubled the thread. I tied a knot in the end of the two threads. This helps the stitches stay in place.

On the first panel I left all the flowers in place and sewed them down one by one. This was fine but it took quite a while. When I did the second panel I laid out the flowers the way I wanted. Once I was happy with the arrangement I took a picture and then took the flowers off the panel. I sewed them on in the same arrangement one by one. This actually felt like it went a lot faster because I wasn't getting the thread tangled in the arrangement as often.

Once those were all in place I whipstitched the entire piece to the shoulders. So when I need to wash it I can clip a few quick stitches, wash and then resew the flowers quickly.

Hand sewing patches is easy! You need thread, the patches and snips.

I pinned the stag patch in place as it is a fairly intricate patch and wanted to shift around. When I sew a patch on I double up the thread, tie a knot in the end and make small stitches. When there's still around three inches of thread on the needle I take it to the back and tie a note in it close to the fabric to help lock in the stitches. I work my way around the patch until I'm back at the beginning having secured all of the patch to the material. That's it!

I did find that sometimes having a thimble was helpful to push the needle through bulky spots in the patches. I picked these patches as they made me think of Frida's works. The stag reminded me of "The Wounded Deer" and the skull patch made me think of "Girl with Death Mask." I have plans to add a jaguar patch and a spider monkey patch. Frida had a pet spider monkey named Fulang Chang and animals featured heavily in her life and in her work.

It's time to wear your jacket with pride, you're done! Celebrate with some pictures!

I enjoyed making this. Frida Kahlo, to me, represents a tenacity for art. She suffered multiple tragedies in her life, from losing a leg as a child to a crippling bus accident that left her bed-bound and in a condition so dire that she had to wear medical corsets. Even in the face of those challenges, Frida still made art. She commissioned prosthetic legs clad in beautiful shoes and created art with them. Her medical corsets are on display as she painted them and manipulated them into artworks of their own, even while she was wearing them.

Frida was someone who celebrated the things that made her different, like her plush brow and ever-so-slight mustache. She also accepted the masculine and the feminine parts of herself. To this end, I think a utilitarian denim jacket would have been a perfect canvas for Frida to use for creating her vibrant wearable works of art.

I quickly hand-sewed three matching flowers to this braided headband. Frida was known to braid her long hair with flowers from her garden and I thought this was a fitting tribute to go along with the jacket. These flowers were fairly large so I secured 2-3 petals to the headband to make them secure.