Fun With Fleece Part 1

Polyester fleece is a fairy new and readily available material.  It's got a lot of nice properties.  It absolutely won't ravel, it's warm, light, wears well, has a little stretch, and embroiders well.  The usual use for fleece has been blankets and active wear style jackets.  I decided to explore different possible uses for fleece and came up with a few.  This series will explore some of the more successful experiments.

One great pattern for fleece is McCall's 5252.   This pattern has been around a while, possibly because it's such a wardrobe staple.  The pattern was originally designed for fleece and comes in variants with a hood or as a vest.

For the purple edition of the jacket, I embellished it with Art Deco Swan designs from Embroidery Library.

The swans on the front were difficult to do: the straight lines of the frames were very hard to keep straight so near the edge of the fabric.  The feather designs on the sleeves have a tendency to curl; the designs are a bit too dense for the fabric.  Still, it's a striking and useful jacket.

A different version of the jacket was originally intended as a cycling jacket.  That's the reason for choosing the very bright chartreuse color.  This version has elastic in the bottom and ends of sleeves to keep the wind out. 

I decorated this jacket with metallic embroidery, including one design on the upper back.  The metallic thread has held up well over several years.   However, fleece isn't particularly wind proof, so this jacket has some major downsides for cycling.

The third edition of this jacket was the most successful.  The light blue color is for the sky, and it's decorated with hummingbirds.

Each of the 8 hummingbirds is unique and I chose them all to residents or visitors to southern Arizona.  The hummingbird designs are dense, but they are also so small that they don't cause problems with the fabric.  This jacket is very popular among my bird loving friends.