Toddler Quilt Coat

I’m still working on creating an adult-sized quilt coat! I first made a dog quilt coat, and since that was a success, I decided to work on a human quilt coat, but, not quite adult sized ;). I wanted to play with different finishing techniques and see how they worked with quilted material.

To make my quilt coat, I first needed a pattern! I found this free quilt coat pattern for toddler size 2-2.5 from Small Dreamfactory. I liked the overall shape and size, so let’s do this!

I’m working through my stash for this coat, and while rummaging through the scrap bins, I found a bag of HSTs in various sizes leftover from making my Flight Path quilt a couple of years ago. I love that the colors can work for both boys and girls, and thought they would work well as a quilt coat. I rummaged some more for additional scraps of fabric in case I needed to make more HSTs (spoiler alert: I needed waaaay more HSTs!)

I played around with different layouts. I wanted the coat to be fun and playful, but not too wild or busy. And since I was working from my stash, what I could or couldn’t do based on amount of fabric on hand was a limiting factor as well.

Once I decided on a HST design, I went to work creating all the pieces I needed. I decided to make the back and front linings out of flannel for extra warmth, but the sleeves are lined with quilting cotton. Flannel tends to stick to other fabrics, and I have a feeling wrestling a 2 year old in a coat is enough of a workout without adding tricky fabrics into the mix.

I hand bound the entire coat with bias binding and big chunky stitches. I love the playfulness that the big stitch binding brings to the piece.

For the side seams and sleeve seams, I bound them using the Hong Kong seam technique, which means they’re bound but the back of the fabric is raw to eliminate bulk. However, I did a simple zig-zag stitch around the armholes, since I didn’t want those seams to be too stiff or bulky.

I finished the coat with four heavy duty snaps. I love the look of the brass snaps with the playful colors of this coat! Overall, this toddler quilt coat was so much fun to make. It was like making 5 miniature quilts and then putting them all together into a garment! Since I don’t have any toddlers in my life, I’ve popped this coat into my shop! Update: sold!

The pattern is sized for a 2-2.5 year old and I would gauge that sizing to be fairly accurate. I had my 3.5 year old neighbor try it on and it was a smidge too tight on him, and my 16 month old nephew absolutely drowned in it, so based on that very limited testing, I’d gauge the pattern size to be pretty true to size. Here’s the finished measurements:

• Armpit to sleeve: 9″
• Width from armpit to armpit: 13.25″
• Length from shoulder to bottom hem: 16.5″

If you need a wider range of sizes for your toddler quilt coat, I love the look of this Pixie Pea Coat by Twig and Tale. I think it would be easy to adapt it into a quilt coat pattern.

Since this toddler quilt coat was such fun, I feel pretty good now about making an adult version. I just have to be brave enough to chop up the quilt I have for this purpose! Wish me luck!