I’m a huge No Doubt fan and when I say huge maybe I should say obsessed! It was summer of 1996 when I was walking by a television playing a music video that caught my eye and ears. The song was so catchy and the girl on the screen was a mixture of pinup and punk rock – I was instantly hooked. I asked my friend who this band was and she replied “No Doubt – Spiderwebs!”. From that second on I was trying to find out everything I could about them.
Fast forward to now – I’m still in love with No Doubt and wanted to show that through my clothing designs. I have a FOX Racing jacket that I really love the look of, so I decided to make a pattern from it. I went out and bought some black sweatshirt material, an edgy fun zipper, some patches that I felt represented No Doubt and a concert tee from their last big tour in 2009.
One great thing I learnt from this project… when you are copying a piece of clothing you already have and it’s a stretchy material – make sure you either 1. buy the same type of stretchy material or 2. compensate for the stretch by adding more fabric, especially in the width. Glad I figured that out the hard way!
This was the first sweatshirt jacket I’ve ever made and I think it turned out really good. The side zipper on the arm really is a pocket, small but still a usable pocket. The patches were iron-on but I also used the sewing machine to sew them onto the sleeve. I cut the tour t-shirt up and used double sided interface to adhere it to the jacket fabric. After that I did an embroidery stitch all around the outside so the edges wouldn’t curl up.
Once I was finished I uploaded a picture collage to my Instagram account and tagged it #ndart. A couple days later and No Doubt shared my photo on their Facebook and their Instagram! The picture at the bottom was taken right before writing this post – 1300 people have liked it so far! So flattering <3 I've had many fans ask me to make one for them too but I really like that it's a one of a kind 😉 (Sorry they are low quality cell phone pictures!)
The 2009 Tour T-Shirt from eBay – T-Shirt-Gods:
Halfway through – I like to sew with panda slippers on…
Almost finished:
Fuzzy picture of me wearing it:
Front:
Side/Back:
Back:
Screenshot of No Doubt’s Instagram:
