What if you could make your very own jacket?
I’ve chosen this particular jacket for us because it’s great for all genders and the pattern accommodates a wide range of sizes (XS-7X). This jacket is a doable make for people without a lot of sewing experience, and has a variety of customization options. I’ve made the Ilford Jacket couple of times before, as you can see in the photos below. It’s a great layering piece for cool and warm weather, and doesn’t require a lot of fitting fuss.
We’ll move through the process together during live classes online (these will also be recorded), AND there are sewalong videos on Friday Pattern Company’s youtube channel that you can access anytime to support you.
Check out the Ilford on Friday Pattern Company’s website - you’ll see lots of examples of what this jacket can look like depending on the style and fabric you choose. :)
over the course of five sundays, you can learn how to do this! you will end up with a jacket that is uniquely yours.
To participate in this class, you will need:
A working sewing machine, and a basic understanding of how to use it
An iron and ironing surface
A pair of fabric scissors OR a rotary cutter and cutting mat
Pins
Access to an internet connection
To purchase (I’ll walk you through how to do this during our first class):
Your own copy of the Ilford Jacket pattern by Friday Pattern Company - either pre-printed, or PDF
Fabric and buttons
What do you want to cloak yourself in during this next season of life during rising authoritarianism, climate catastrophe and more?
Over the past few years, I have sewn more than 60 garments for myself and a few loved ones — jackets, skirts, pants, tops, underwear, dresses. I have learned a ton through trial and error, and through studying the work of a number of independent pattern designers and sewing instructors. As an antiracist facilitator of adult learning and strategy sessions for almost twenty years, know that I will bring a bit of an unusual sauce to sewing instruction.
The first questions I will ask of you, if you come to sewing school with me, are: What do you want to cloak yourself in during this next season? What feeling do you want this garment to evoke for you when you wear it? How might this garment support you to be who you want to be now—whether at home or out and about?
Whatever that feeling is, I will encourage you to evoke this energy with the fabric you select, and with the ways you style your jacket. Let this sewing project be purposeful and delightful. Let it support you in ways you don’t expect.
For those who sign up for sewing school with me, the practical guidance you’ll receive includes:
the steps of garment sewing broken down into a clear process, from start to finish
accompaniment - wherever you get frustrated or stuck or confused, you won’t be alone
how to use a sewing pattern - demystify what can be the most intimidating obstacle to sewing garments
how to select a fabric - with pro tips, and in alignment with how you’ve answered the questions above :)
how to make fit adjustments to the pattern, based on your body shape and size
class one. sunday, august 17. 2-4 pm eastern time.
Declaring a mood, feeling, or intention for your garment
Selecting your size
Selecting fabric (and matching thread) - part one
Instructions for how to print your pattern before next class
class four. sunday, september 14. 2-4 pm eastern time.
Main Body
Collar
*You MUST have your thread in hand by this date!
class two. sunday, august 24. 2-4 eastern time.
Cutting your pattern
Fit adjustments
Selecting fabric (and matching thread) - part two
*You MUST have your pattern printed or traced and ready to cut by this date!
class five. sunday, september 21. 2-4 pm eastern time.
Sleeves
Pockets
Buttons
*You MUST have your buttons in hand by this date!
class three. sunday, august 31. 2-4 pm eastern time.
Cutting your fabric
*You MUST have your fabric in hand by this date!
We will make our jackets together, during class sessions. You will not need to do much between classes, unless you get behind. Most class sessions will be “work time” - we will be working at our sewing machines or with our scissors while connected over Zoom for some instruction and for opportunities to ask questions and get help when any of us are stuck.
Why do I love sewing garments? What are some of the ways it benefits me? What are some of my hypotheses about how this practice can be liberatory?
Every body is unique. It’s affirming to make and wear garments that fit my body’s current shape rather than be at the mercy of pant legs and sleeves that are always too long, as just one example. Choosing clothes from a measuring system that’s based on patriarchal, colonial, and ableist notions of how bodies should be shaped, or rather the shapes clothing should be that we then must contort ourselves to feel ok in, is not necessary. What if we started instead from the truth that each body is acceptable as it is, and that each person deserves clothes that fit well and make that person feel good?
Color and texture bring me delight. The pairing of fabrics and garment shapes available in stores and online often bores or repels me. The range of fabrics available for sewists is great fun to explore. Making a garment from a fabric I love is delightful to touch, to look at and to wear. What if we got to wear fabrics that made us feel more delight? What if we expressed ourselves more creatively and authentically through clothing, less constrained by what the fashion industry has deemed trendy or sellable on a massive scale? And by what the fashion industry has deemed acceptable for people who are supposed to fit into false and constraining definitions of gender?
The experience from start to finish is empowering and satisfying. Starting with a flat, rectangular piece of cloth, cutting it into flat shapes, and then slowly watching these pieces become a three-dimensional garment is magical. I’m never able to completely picture what the completed garment will look like when I begin. With each step, I think “oh, that’s how to make it do that!” So many other things I’m working on aren’t finishable in my lifetime (e.g., ending white supremacy), but garments can be completed. Why not enjoy the feeling of completing something, knowing all it took to make it, and then wearing it with pride?
I learn a lot from making mistakes. I get to practice taking my mistakes less seriously, and even delighting in unexpectedly wonderful things that happen as a result. Maybe I cut a piece of fabric out upside down, and end up with the left front of a shirt with stripes going horizontal instead of vertical; and that actually made the garment much more interesting. Maybe I ran out of fabric before cutting all my pieces, and then chose a contrasting fabric for a part of the collar or sleeve cuff; and that actually made the garment more fun. I like the feeling of wearing garments I made, knowing their imperfections, and enjoying the ways the final product surprised me.
Sewing connects me with an art, a craft, and a labor with tendrils across space and time. Living in the US in 2025, I am disconnected from the invisible and exploited labor of most of the people who make the clothing I can buy. The ways clothes have been designed, made and worn throughout human history and in different parts of the world illuminate worldviews about the body and adornment, information about folk traditions and magical symbols, examples of power and subversion, impacts of colonialism and enslavement, histories of reproductive labor, and so much more. Each fiber, from cotton to wool to rayon, has stories to tell. My craft includes not just garment sewing but quilting and embroidery as well. In my early 20s I was into weaving and yarn spinning. I’ve done quite a bit of knitting and cross-stitch over the years too. When it comes to needle and thread and fabric, I’m interested in the ways these can connect us through space and time to ways of knowing and being outside of dominant culture - before and after the era of white supremacy - and in what the medium itself has to teach us about how we might move through the polycrises of this time with more purposeful and impactful choices.
Two of the garment sewists I’ve been inspired by most consistently over recent years are Meg McElwee of Sew Liberated and Jasika Nicole. I trust their values, approach, and creativity. I recommend checking them and their work out!