Sweatshirt to Jacket Transformation for a "Tween"

Here's yet another sweatshirt to jacket project.  I bought this sweatshirt from Nancy's Notions, along with several others, on sale.  I used the quick fitting method on this very fast jacket project.

Source

When I went to the Quilt Festival in Houston a few years ago I bought some Fusible Stay Tape (pictured above) from Londa's Creative Threads booth, as well as some of her books.  This Fusible Stay Tape is so easy to use - it is narrow (unlike others I found) and stabilizes the knit fabric by simply fusing it (fusible on one side only) so no stay-stitching is required.  There are two types: "Knit" and "Straight".  I use the "knit" tape on necklines or curved areas.  I use the "straight"  tape on front openings (after cutting open).  Before I found this product I "tried" to stabilize with fusibles, but couldn't find anything narrow enough.  There is a LOT in each package.  I still haven't used it all yet.

Since this jacket was for a "tween" I used sweet and fun flower appliques from BunnyCup Embroidery.  It was free! It stitched out very nicely and I resized it with no problems.  It's amazing how many free designs are out there.

The brown print was a small amount  bought years ago to "audition" for baby bedding.  It was ultimately not used for that purpose and I've since used just about all of it up.  I had just enough for this project.  I didn't have quite enough for true bias tape, so I had to make due with simple foldover.  If you look closely at the neckline you can see that bias would have been better, but... I used the same fabric as a ruffle at the sleeve.

Closure detail

In this close-up of the closure you can see that I used a black hair elastic and two covered buttons.  The one on the left anchors the elastic and the one on the right is the one the elastic goes around to secure. (not sure if that even makes sense, but it's late).  I love covered buttons and they're so easy and cheap to make!

Close-up of the appliqued flowers.