Project Frankenstein: denim jacket + hoodie

Sometimes I wonder if projects that simmer in my head for months eventually get finished so quickly because I overthink everything way too hard… or precisely because I’ve thought about it for so long that all the difficult decisions have actually already been made before I even start.

This denim jacket with a hoodie is perhaps the perfect example of that.

Months ago, one of my nieces sent me a photo of a denim jacket with an integrated hoodie, finished with a K-pop group logo. She asked if I might be able to make something like that?

My first instinct was that this couldn’t be that difficult, so I replied: “That should be doable.” But when push came to shove, my head answered something completely different.

Even before I had undone or sewn a single stitch, I had already been thinking for weeks about exactly how I would tackle it.

The first challenge was finding suitable material. I found a hoodie almost immediately at the thrift store, but a denim jacket turned out to be surprisingly harder to find. For a moment, I even started to fear that I would have to put together a jacket myself from an old pair of jeans.

Fortunately, the perfect one eventually crossed my path.

And then…

…everything lay untouched for another few months.

But my mind kept thinking and doubting about the best way to put the different parts together.

At that time, I still hadn’t undone or stitched a single stitch, but I did use this project as my excuse to buy a second-hand Cricut Joy Xtra.

And as it goes, of course I didn’t start on the jacket, but instead disappeared for hours behind my computer to get to know Cricut Design Space, try out fonts, and experiment with band logos.

It wasn’t until three months after I had bought the jacket and hoodie that I finally mustered enough courage to put the scissors to it.

And the funny thing? The job was done in two afternoons.
And honestly, it could have even been done in one afternoon… if I hadn’t started doubting the sleeves again along the way.

I started with the hood.

I carefully unpicked it from the hoodie, after which I finished the raw edge with the overlock machine.

I then attached the hood just below the collar of the denim jacket, so that the stitching remained nicely hidden.

To do this, the original hanging loop had to be removed. I replaced it with a red velvet ribbon that I still had in my stash. Not only was it sturdy enough, it also matched perfectly with the red logo that would later appear on the back.

Step one: success.

Next came the sleeves.

And that was actually where my biggest moment of doubt lay: Should I replace the entire denim sleeve with the hoodie sleeve, or just the bottom part, like in the inspiration photo?

Ultimately, I chose to stay as close as possible to the original design and therefore only replace the cuffs. But even after that, I kept having doubts.
In the inspiration photo, the transition was deliberately left unfinished so that the denim fabric could fray slightly. That makes the transition between the two fabrics much softer. I considered doing that for a very long time, but I ultimately went for a neat finish because I wasn’t entirely sure how to achieve that effect.

Looking back, I still have a little regret about that, although I have to admit that the transition looked much better than I had expected after a good ironing.

The final scary part that remained was the logo.

Designing and cutting it out with the Cricut was quite simple once I got the hang of the software. What I was much more unsure about was ironing on the iron-on vinyl.

Online, almost everyone seems convinced that you absolutely need a Cricut Heat Press for that. A regular iron is supposedly not accurate enough in terms of temperature and also doesn’t distribute the pressure nicely and evenly.
However, the more videos I watched, the more I started to suspect that there was a bit of clever marketing behind that. Because ultimately… how many times have I ironed stabilizer onto fabric with a regular iron?
So I decided to just give it a try.

And sure enough. No problem at all.
The BabyMonster logo adhered perfectly and beautifully to the jeans.

And ta-da!! This is the final result.

I was scared about this project for months, while looking back, it went very smoothly. Maybe I should learn a lesson from that. Not every scary project needs to be truly complicated.

The very best moment remains, of course, giving the gift. And fortunately, the jacket was a complete hit and was immediately tried on with enthusiasm. A DIYer really couldn’t wish for more.

Cheers,
Charlotte