Two winter coats

I've been MIA lately, sorry. Both our laptop and PC need new motherboards so I've been finding it difficult to get online much - the Hubby's phone is OK for reading the odd email but typing a blog post on it? I never realised just how fat my finger tips are! Fortunately my mother has left me her laptop for a few days while she goes down to London to visit my sisters so I am taking full advantage and have been online most of the day :D

The first project I have to show you is a pair of winter coats that I have made for Niece E and Toddler. My Princess and Monkey are pretty much set for coats this year thanks to hand me downs and the kindness of Grandma but Toddler and Niece E needed a little something to see them though to spring. Enter Ottobre (of course!) and pattern #14 from the Winter 2004 issue. The fabric has embroidered cord bonded to faux fur and it has been ageing in my stash for quite a while, I think I bought it from fabric.com two or three years ago. I had to cut Toddler's sleeves cross grain to squeeze both coats out of two yards but it looks absolutely fine so we'll call it a deliberate design feature ;P



I love the tulip shaped pockets. I lined them with quilting cotton as the fashion fabric would have been far too thick. My machine struggled to sew this in places! The hems and inside of the front facing are finished with 1" wide baby blue FOE (fold over elastic) which looks great, I'm glad I had enough left for both coats as it was so much easier to apply than bias biding would have been.



If you peep underneath that front overlap you will find the zipper. The pattern is designed for buttons and as such the overlap isn't very wide, it just covers the zipper tape and no more. After one abortive attempt at button holes though the zip was definitely the best way to go even though it's not the neatest looking finish.



Looking at the inside view, you can see that I've simply sewn the zip on along the centre front line on either side. Definitely not neat but very functional and really, who else but me (and now you ;P) knows that it wasn't intended that way?



And here are a couple of modelled shots courtesy of Toddler herself. It's a little wide on her (Ottobre's fabric was, I think, much thicker than mine so I have more ease than intended) but it leaves lots of room for layers underneath and doesn't restrict her movement at all. The hood makes a great collar when it's down and protects the back of her neck from the wind and when it's up she looks like a little pixie, it is very pointy!

Two months!

While clicking the New Post button on my Blogger dashboard I noticed my last post date was February 24th. I can't believe I haven't blogged anything in two months!! I haven't really been doing much sewing but still, for two whole months? The time is really getting away from me lately.

I think the only thing I have ready to show today is two more of the sweet little coats from Ottobre Spring 2010. I blogged a lavender one for the Baby already and liked the pattern so much I decided to make one each for my two youngest nieces. The outer corduroy is a gorgeous deep cranberry red which did not photograph at all well, the inner linings on both are twill prints from Painting Red Rhinos, sweet fabrics from stash that are older than the girls they are being given to LOL!

Here's a photo of the larger one being modelled by my Monkey - it's a size or so too small for her and wouldn't button shut but you get the general idea :) My niece is much smaller though only six months younger than my model, her mother has reported that she loves it and it fits her nicely.





I laid a single line of fusible thread into the outer foldlines of the pleats and fused them into place to keep the pleat crisp. Fingers crossed that it holds up through laundering and the pleats won't have to be fully refolded and pressed every time it gets washed! I love the big buttons, they're so old fashioned looking. A complete bear to sew the buttonholes for though, my auto buttonhole foot only just did a hole that was wide enough!

Here are both of the linings, I love using fun prints for coat linings. Just because it's inside and mostly unseen doesn't mean it has to be ugly, right?





And here is a close up of the smaller button and tab on the sleeves. I think this one little detail makes all the difference to the whole pattern, it's such a nice touch.



That's it for today. I have finished a couple more projects but I don't have any pics of them yet, I will blog when I'm done! I'm quite excited about the one I'm working on just now, there will hopefully be a post about it in the next few days :)

Ottobre 1/2010 #14 Coat

As soon as I saw the first page in Ottobre's Spring 2010 magazine I knew I had to make this coat. I absolutely love it, it's one of my favourite coat patterns from all of their magazines and I'll be making one each for the Baby, the Monkey and the Niece. I'd happily size it up for the Princess too, we'll see what she says!

This is part of the Baby's Spring SWAP, the outer is a very lightweight lavender babywale corduroy that I've had in my stash for a good year or so and the lining is a lavender/white polka dot woven. I found a use for one of my skinny minky scraps, it has made the softest, snuggliest collar you could imagine.

This is a really, really nice pattern to sew. It went together very quickly with no problems at all. I haven't sewn the buttons on yet, I couldn't get the right size locally so have to wait on my online order arriving. I'll be making fabric covered buttons from the lavender cord.

Here's the front:


The back - ignore the wonky collar, it's folded over unevenly!


The lining:


And the incredibly soft collar, wish I had one of these on my coat!


One down, two to go!