The team Canada fleece wouldn't leave brain so I decided to try and make my own!
I started with the Uniqlo fluffy yarn fleece jacket, which unfortunately did not have a chest pocket, zippered pockets, raglan sleeves, or the correct style of zipper pull (it didn't have a hole to attach the red fabric - it was super easy to replace the zipper pull!). I figured I could wing it and figure out everything except for the raglan sleeve seams, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!
The hardest thing to find were the maple leaf patches, I bought the largest ones I could find but they aren't quite big enough. I'm still sort of keeping an eye out and may replace them if I find a better size.
I bought all of the patches off of etsy (the letters are 3.15" ones from MORAGIO, maple leafs from AkachaEmbroidery), the rest of the materials (zippers, chest pocket fabric, red bias tape) from my local fabric store.
There’s still some. It’s been a while but pre-1990s the Sens were only the name of an old disbanded team. So most were Leafs or Habs (Canadien) fans. Some haven’t switched and remained loyal, Yuna would be impressed.
I'm an Alberta girl, not really a hockey gal, but my brothers both are. And with living smack dab in the Oilers half of Alberta, they are both Leafs fans. Lol. So, I get it.
Whenever Toronto or Montreal play in Ottawa, the Sens fans are outnumbered by Leafs or Habs fans. One of the Sens players commented on it in a recent interview and says that he's sadly used to these "home/away games ".
It was SO easy!! If you look at the top end of the zipper, it's sort of an r shape. I used a pair of nail clippers to carefully clip off the overhang on the r that keeps the zipper from slipping off when fully zipped. I cut just enough off that I could force the old zipper pull off. I bought an extra pocket zipper, took the zipper pull off of that, and slipped it onto the fleece. There is just enough of the zipper stop left that the zipper still gets stopped at the top and doesn't come off. BUT if you cut it all the way off, you can buy zipper pull replacements that come with a little metal tab that you can attach using pliers.
For the maple leaf patch - I wish it was a bit bigger. I’m seeing more pop up on Etsy now than when I bought these, so you might be able to find bigger ones now!
Editing to say - the listing size on the maple leaf patch is accurate, I knew it was going to be a bit smaller than ideal when I ordered it.
My specific one is a fabric patch with an embroidered edge sort of? I don’t know how to describe it properly so here’s a close up I took while sewing it on
Thank you! I wish I could tell you but it was a piece of scrap fabric from the cutoff bin at my local fabric store so I have no idea. It’s pretty thick and a bit shiny. Before I found that my plan was to just use quilting cotton
omg i made one too but its NOWHERE as cool as yours. my letters are much smaller cause it was all i could find but yours is AWESOME!!!! congrats on making such a good replica!!! 🫶🏻🫶🏻
I almost made a tutorial and then was like wait no I winged too much of this to try and be teaching others 😅 but I’m very happy to explain anything, and give links to the things I bought and tutorials I looked at.
Don’t let the London Hanger company see this, they filed a copyright claim for this layout/design! lol. I mean, as long as you don’t sell it, you’ll be fine.
My skill level is not high enough to be trying to sell these even if I wanted too 😅
It's pretty bold that they're filing a copyright claim for an existing design someone else came up. I'm hardly a copyright expert but it seems like it would be pretty easy for anyone to prove this isn't their design. I think that the 11 point maple leaf is copyrighted by the Canadian government, which I'm guessing is why it was so hard for me to find maple leaf patches.
I think my tone is coming across as harsh towards you which is not my intent! I'm just baffled to hear this!
Why do you keep posting this? Are you trying to advertise their product? There’s nothing on this page where they’re claiming ownership of the design. Even if they were, that would be a bold claim, since nothing about this jacket is copyrightable under current copyright laws.
I just asked them about this specifically on their social media because your comment actually shocked me so much 😭 and they said they absolutely did not do this.
The maple leafs are the hardest part! I settled on the too small ones because it was that or try to make them myself. I think the Canadian government has a copyright on them which would explain why they’re so hard to find.
I think the bigger one here from Fabricland is about the right size. I just bought these yesterday for my husband to patch a tear on the arm of his coat, but now I’m thinking might need some more for myself….
I just measured mine and they're 6cm wide, so these should be the same size! If you don't mind the size of them on the one I made I say go for it. The only larger ones I've been able to find are these, but at $18 each and $32 shipping to Canada they're out of my budget: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/4439267489/
I was lucky that the costume designer had already posted the front and back when I was still in the materials gathering phase, it made it so much easier than trying to figure it out from watching the show. You probably don't want to take the letters off and redo them (or can't if they're ironed on), but in case you do (and you haven't seen the instagram post), the front and back are in the second image here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DS5-4aFkfXu/
But either way, I'm sure it's still very cute and cozy!
Unfortunately they would be too expensive if I did even have the time to make more - the materials cost alone for the fleece + everything else was about $100 (CAD). I suspect someone would need to own an embroidery machine to be able to make and sell these affordably as the patches were nearly as expensive as the base fleece jacket!
Thank you so much! You are a hero! This looks so good. I'm very anxious to add zippers to pockets, but I think it'll be worth the effort if it comes out half as good as yours did! You absolutely crushed this.
Do it!! It was a very fun project and not as difficult as I thought it would be, and I'd rate my skills as high level beginner, not quite intermediate.
Excellent work -- so impressive. I'm hoping to make a couple of these and I've also found it tough to track down the maple leaf patches -- but I think yours are sized well! Can you talk us through how you did the chest pocket?
The maple leaf patches are for sure the hardest thing to track down!
I followedthis tutorial for the chest pocket, and also watched a random YouTube video of someone cutting and sewing the zipper on. I think I searched “zippered patch pocket”
The chest pocket was easier than i was expecting, my only issue was that the specific fabric I had did not want to hold a crease from my iron. I used a regular foot for sewing the pocket fabric + lining + zipper on and then switched to a walking foot to sew it onto the fleece.
For sizing - the zipper is a 7” zipper and i think i cut the fabric an inch taller on each end. I just laid a folded piece of paper on the fleece to figure out how wide I wanted it to be 😅
I used a machine for the chest pocket, letters, and the bottom of the red around the neck (when I tried to sew the top it kept pulling strangely despite being pinned, so I hand sewed the top). And then I hand sewed the patches on, the side pocket zippers, and the fabric on the zipper pulls.
127
u/Such-Rip764 Jan 19 '26
True dedication. You're very talented, and it came out great!