How to make a zero waste bog jacket: an easy beginner sewing project
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Summary
I posted a 30-second clip of this little bog jacket and a lot of you got irrationally mad that I skipped steps. Fair enough. So here's the real one — the whole thing, start to finish, with an actual blanket, in real time, with all my bad habits on display.
A bog jacket is about as zero waste as sewing gets: you fold one rectangle, make a handful of straight cuts, and everything you cut out becomes part of the jacket. No pattern, no pieces left over. It's a great beginner project, and it's very forgiving if (like me) you refuse to pin or measure.
- Start with one rectangle. Mine was a 48" x 36" blanket. Fold it a third of the way down, then fold in half again — fewer cuts that way.
- Check your width before you cut. Doubled, the body needs to be wider than your bust. My 12" panel gave me 48" total, so it fits a 48" bust.
- Cut the neck asymmetrically — lower in front, higher in the back — so it doesn't sit weird on your neck. Snip the center first so you can work between the layers.
- The sewing is four seams: sleeves, the vertical center section, then the horizontal center section. Keep your layers separate so you don't sew the jacket shut down the middle.
- Finish the neckline with bias tape — pin from the back, add a little stretch as you go, straight stitch at 3/8", trim the excess, press, then topstitch both edges for a clean, professional finish.
- Do as I say, not as I do. You should be pinning. You should be measuring. I am doing neither.
- Bonus: my blanket wasn't quite big enough, so the sleeves got extended with some cut-up jeans. It happens. Improvise.
Transcript
Hi. Hello. Yesterday I shared a 30-second clip that showed you how to make this little bog jacket. A lot of you got like irrationally mad that all of the steps weren't covered. That's wild work, my friends. But I'm here. Don't fear. I'm going to show you how to make it using a real blanket. And I'll probably show all the steps unless I forget.
If you're new here, welcome. I'm Sami and I'm half of Time to Waste Vintage. My husband and I sell vintage clothes and curate an epic collection, but for some reason people seem to like my sewing content. So now I make easy-to-use tutorials that um make size inclusive clothes and stuff. Uh, hang out, have fun. Let's go make a freaking bog jacket, shall we?
How's this for a freaking angle? Okay. So, you're gonna start with a blanket or a piece of fabric or whatever you've got. This one measures 48 inches one way, 36 in the other. I'm going to take it and fold it 1/3 of the way down. This is super easy because of the grid on this, but uh yours might be harder. So, here it is folded a third of the way down. Now I'm going to take it and I'm going to fold it in half this way. So my fold is here. I'm going to even everything out because that got a little messy. And if you don't mind cutting a couple times, you don't have to have it folded in half like this. But I hate cutting, so I like to do it as little as possible.
All right, we got these guys pretty lined up. Don't mind this. It was a prop from earlier. Okay, so here are we framed. You are going to cut here and here — or like my props earlier showed, here. Whoops. You will be like this. And then you'll also cut here. Now, if you want this to fit you, you need to make sure that this doubled is wider than you are from here to here. So, because of the total width, this I already know is 12 inches, which means the other side here is 12 inches, which means I will get 24 inches here, a total of 48 inches. So, it will fit a 48-inch bust. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense.
So, now I'm going to cut. And what you should know is when you're cutting the neck, you probably don't want to go this hard. Okay? So, be patient. Wait. We're going to cut this one right here. I happen to have these very convenient lines to cut on. You should probably be doing some pinning. You should probably be doing some actual measuring. Just zip right through. Got these scissors that are supposed to be super amazing, but they don't uh they don't impress me much. Shania. [snorts]
Okay. So, you got that part done. Now, for the neck, I'm gonna wait right now to cut it. No, I'm not. I'm not patient enough for that. So, what you need to know — am I still framed up? Okay. What you need to know is this is the total neck. If you cut it even on both sides, your front and your back are going to be the same. I don't really want them to be the same. I want the back to come up higher. So, I'm going to make just a little snip here in the center to get myself where I can work between these two layers. And then I'm going to cut the front lower. Then I'm going to cut the back.
Um, how do I want to do it? I'm going to grab this guy. I'm going to measure over about 3 and 1/2 inches. Okay. And we're going to cut. [snorts] I'm only cutting through one of the top layers. And then the bottommost layer is the other half of the front. So I'm going to go over here and I'm going to cut it just as far. Again, you should be measuring. You should be pinning. Do as I say, not as I do. Okay. And I want the front to come down about — we're going to say 3 and 1/2 inches. So we'll go to here. You're pinning. You're measuring. You're not doing what I'm doing.
All right. That's pretty close. Pretty close. And then I'm just going to cut a curve so that it evens out um this quarter of the neck. This half of the front neck. And then flipping her over. Doing the same thing on this side. I'm deliberately cutting a little shallow so that I can clean it up. And now I need to — okay, it's a little brown. [laughter] I didn't come down quite far enough. I'm going to open this up in a second and you'll be able to get a better feel for it. See, aren't the 30-second tutorials better?
Okay, so this will become the front. You can tell it's not quite center. We'll even that out in a bit. Um, and then we're going to actually even it out now cuz it is driving me bonkers. Close enough for now. And then we're going to bring this back part down just a tad so it doesn't sit high and weird on my neck. You may be wondering right now, what about a collar? How are we going to finish the neck? Maybe we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. We are not there yet.
So now you're going to open this guy up. And this is inside out. So, if I wanted it the way that it'll look when it's done, it'll be like this, like this, and like this. And you see how these aren't quite touching? That's because I didn't cut quite far enough. So, I'm going to cut just a little bit more on this side. And then I'm going to cut just a little bit more on this side, because you need them to touch. You may even need them to overlap if you plan on using buttons in the end. But I'm going to sew this whole guy shut, so now once they can overlap. Are you good? Are you good?
Okay. So what you sew is these two together — this top to this layer and this bit to here and this bit to here. And then you finish your edges, you finish your neck, you add any other pieces, and that's really about it. So now I'm going to stop the recording, take pictures of this to use for the slideshow post, and then I'm going to get to sewing. I'm going to sew on the wrong sides. So I'm going to go ahead and flip it back this way. And see, like I see a good opportunity for an inside pocket here. I also see you still don't seem quite even. Just a tiny bit more. All right, there we go. And if I do a good job, this could be reversible. It's pretty cute. Okay, I'll be right back.
Once you're all cut out, you're going to pin everything into place. And then zoop zoop, baby. First the sleeves, then this vertical middle section, and then this horizontal middle section. Make sure you keep your layers separate so you don't sew your jacket together in the center. And after you're done getting it all sewn into place, press that [ __ ] baby. Press those seams and check your angles.
And okay, so now I'm working on the inside and I've measured the length of this and I cut this to be the same length even though we know it's going to be shorter later. So from the inside I am going to pin. Oh, I should also explain. I made this little bias tape. I've got one edge folded over. That'll make sense when it's on the right side. And on this side we're going wrong. And then we're going to pin the raw edge all the way around your neckline. It's better to start at the back and then you're going to add a little stretch as you go. So just gently pulling the bias tape so that it's taut all the way around.
Okay. So we're lined up with this, which is 3/8 inch, and we're going to go all the way around the edge. After you've sewn your straight stitch around the border of the neckline, you're going to cut off the excess seam allowance, being careful not to cut into your stitches. This will prevent bulk later. Also, I'm pretty sure you can see why I hate cutting so much. Look at that technique.
And then it's back to the ironing board to press open those seams. And then it's back to the sewing machine to do a topstitch around the very edge of the bias tape. Now you're working on the outside obviously because it's a topstitch. And then you're going to do another line around the other edge of your bias tape, keeping everything flat, making sure that it is nice and smooth. And this is what will give you just a more professional look and hold everything together nice and neat for you.
And then, you know, press those seams, press your neckline, make it look good, trim all your little loose bits and bobs, and then that's it. That's it. That's literally it. Look at this. And okay, you might be noticing right about now that there are these random extra bits there at the end of the sleeves. That's because I didn't make them long enough. Uh, I thought the blanket would be big enough. It wasn't. So, I cut up some jeans and I made some sleeves. I'm probably going to go back and do like ties as trim on the sleeves just to like bring it all together better. But um easy peasy. It's just a few cuts, a few straight stitches, and you're all set.
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