After watching the Greatest Showman for the first time this March, I knew I HAD to make a showman jacket for camp since we had chosen to do that type of theme at our Girls summer camp for the week in July. I wasn’t sure yet HOW I was going to do the arm embroidery since my 20 year old machine bit the dust in October 2018. I had asked the local High School if I could borrow their machine which was the same as mine and I used it to help alter the schools JROTC uniforms, but they had an audit coming up and needed it until after the school year ended because they didn’t know when it was going to happen. So, no machine.

Didn’t matter because I was still working on getting the design right after working off of small pictures from the internet and movie. I live in Arkansas and went to visit family in Wisconsin and I knew I could go around to the area Goodwills quickly to try to find a black, man’s suit jacket that would fit. The original plan was to add fabric to the black jacket. I found a jacket at the first store as well as a red dress that wasn’t quite the right red. I remembered they had curtains so, I went to look for red curtains. They had a set of bright red curtains! I knew I had to do this then even without a embroidery machine.  I bought the jacket and curtains for about $28.

I got home and started ripping the jacket apart to make the pattern. I adapted it for what I had seen on the screen and started drawing out the pattern. As I started to think about the lining I knew I couldn’t find a heavier lining like I wanted at my Wal-mart. I didn’t want to drive the hour one way to find it. Our local Fred’s store was closing and that made me think that they MIGHT have a set of black curtains that could work and it was a good bit of yardage. I found a set for $14. Now, I thinking I was going to do the best darn jacket because everything was falling in place.  I STILL needed the embroidery machine.

May came along and my birthday and Mother’s Day are close and my husband, daughter and I went to Memphis for lunch and a movie. My local store was having a sale and I dragged them in to see what kind of deals they had. My husband said, “I’ll let you get a machine up to the price of XX.” Wow, the one I had just looked at was above that price, but I’d be happy with it. We ended up getting that machine. AWESOME!! I could now test the design to get it right.  So, after 56 hours of working on the design, the jacket and hat I felt like I had it the best I could make it.  I placed it on top of my luggage in my car and drove to Wisconsin a couple of days before camp. I was still on the look out for a small brooch that could sort of look like the one they had on the jacket. I also found that at a thrift store.  It was a big hit at camp and it was one of my best years up there.

I was so proud of the jacket I asked if the sewing store who sold me the machine would like to display it for their customers to see what is possible. It currently has a home there.

Launch Gallery