Last fall, I made a quilted vest by hacking the former Kochi jacket pattern, now called the Luna Jacket, from Papercut Patterns. I made enough alterations that the collar was the only thing that looked like the original. I still wear it often, but for some reason, when I saw Geri In Stitches Fibre Mood Irma, it occurred to me that maybe I hadn’t achieved the holy grail of quilted vests yet.

Many of the things I liked about Geri’s version were hacks she made to the original pattern, including changing the shape of the pockets, closing it with an obi belt, and making it reversible.

I had some beautiful batik fabrics in different shades of dusky purple. None of the fabrics were enough yardage to make the entire pattern. I mixed and matched to make it work. Like my Ayora jacket, I combined machine quilting with hand quilting, using several different shades of purple thread.  The vest is made with quilting cotton lined with cotton batting, all of which was in my (extremely out-of-control) stash.

I tried a couple of things to “improve” the pattern – adding pockets to the inside of the vest (the inside ones were to be lined, the outside ones quilted) and I made the pockets bigger. I ultimately shortened the huge pockets from my initial hack (the result: they ended up the same sizeas the ones on Geri’s version), and eliminated the pockets on the inside. At the time, I told myself the mushroom print was so bold I would probably never wear it with that side out, so I wouldn’t need pockets on the inside. Once I was finished with it, though, I woke up in a mood one morning and put it on mushroom side out and loved it, and only missed the pockets a few times.I changed the construction of the sleeve bits – I lined them with batting and sewed the mushroom layer to the purple outer fabric like you would attach a cuff – sewing together the two layers around the outside edge so they didn’t need to be bias bound, and hopefully would be a little smaller. I finished by handstitching them down with tiny stitches.

The vest hung off my shoulders even before I added the sleeve pieces, but I really liked the way they look. The sleeve piece adds structure, and I feel like a mom out of Star Wars when I put it on. I felt like I was putting together a very obtuse puzzle with all the fiddly arm pieces. They went on the opposite of how I thought they would. It resulted in a fair amount of seam ripping. This is partly because I didn’t spend a lot of time with the instructions. I was mad about the instructions before I even read them because they weren’t included as a download with the pattern – you have to make an account on the Fibre Mood website, then find the instructions and download them separately. The whole process took way longer than it needed to and created an unnecessary, multiple layered barrier which Fibre Mood needs to fix.

I made a small based on my measurements. The vest felt huge when I tried it on for the first time. My muscular arms don’t always fit in extra small armholes. For this reason, I often hesitate to size down, even with oversized patterns, but then am dwarfed by the swathes of, in this case, stiff quilted fabric sticking out from my body like I was wearing a very pretty cardboard box.By the following day, I had removed an inch from the length of the vest, and reduced the size of my hacked pockets by 2 inches. I made the side seams a half inch instead of the 3/8 in called for in the pattern. I’d also attached the bias binding around the edges and over raw seams, and had started tacking it down by hand. I figured out how the arm pieces needed to go on. All those details converged to make me hate the project a whole lot less as it started to come together. I wish there was an option to skip the “I hate this project. It will be ugly and unwearable” phase of the make.

If I make another one, and I may – I really like the shape and function of it – I would add some height to the collar to bring it up further on my neck, because while it’s cozy, having my whole neck covered would be even better. I might also double line the neck area for extra warmth. I really despise having a cold neck.I added fabric loops, sewn into the bias binding, on each side of the vest’s front opening, a couple inches above the slash pockets, so that it could be secured inside and out with buttons. I had fun picking buttons for each side out of my stash. I was able to put the buttons opposite each other and hid the threads from sewing them under the other side’s button.

The only stinky thing is that in order for the buttons to be opposite each other, I have to close one side opposite to the way I would naturally do it (left over right feels weird, right over left feels ok). I could add another button or something, but I suspect it’s one of those things that will bother me less with time, or only bother me when I’m putting it on. Plus, it doesn’t LOOK weird, it just feels weird. I again took inspiration from Geri’s Irma and made an obi belt as an alternative/addition to the buttons. I used the pattern from the Wildwood Wrap Dress. My belt is reversible, a purple side, and a seriously jaunty yellow polka dot batik print for the mushroom side – way bolder than my usual color choices. The print reminds me of fungus, as does the purple dotted batik I used for the bias binding. Using the bias binding around the edges of the obi belt prevented the yellow from showing through to the other side at the edges when I’m wearing it purple side out, and I like how it matches the vest.

I like the added structure of the belt to what would otherwise be kind of a boxy, shapeless garment. By late afternoon, I also like taking the belt off and just using the button closure, which still nips the Irma in at the waist but provides a little more space to relax and expand, whether that is due to gravity, bad posture, or eating too much cauliflower.So there she is, a half moody, half quirky, seasonal addition to my handmade wardrobe. As the weather gets chilly, it has been nice to have a few options in the morning for wrapping myself in a wearable blanket before coming down to face the day.

In this post, I’m wearing the Irma with fairly rumpled Sew House Seven Free Range Slacks.