Octo Reversible Jacket

I finally finished the epic octopus jacket! I made it for my nephew (2.5 years) to pass down to my niece (7 months) when it gets too small. It is about a size 5, but I think a smaller kid could wear it with the sleeves rolled up. My nephew is big for his age so it will probably fit in the fall.

It was somewhat difficult and time consuming because it was my first time doing a jacket, sleeves, appliqué, collar, lining… you get the picture. It was originally supposed to just be a blue jacket with octopus lining, but after a few people told me they thought the octopus print should be on the outside, I made it reversible.

Next time I would zig-zag (I don’t have a serger) the edges of the curved parts of the sleeve before assembly. I found it awkward and impossible to fully zig-zag the armpit area for the canvas after it was together; I ended up doing sections by hand.

At first I thought setting the sleeves was going to be impossible; the sleeves seemed to have too much fabric. It ended up being simple if you pin the top and bottom first and then distribute each side of the sleeve separately.

Blue Front

At first I bought some brown buttons, but I ended up going with the orange with brown edges vegetable ivory (expensive) buttons. I went with two extra buttons for decoration because the blue is quite plain. The octopus wraps around most of the sleeve. It was a pain trying to sew around all those legs!