And so another year...goodbye 2019

Another year has whizzed by and I find myself looking back on a pretty meagre sewing year, averaging just over a garment per month. If the surprise from last year's review was how many finished garments there were then this year's is how few. I knew there hadn't been much sewing in 2019, with long dry spells of no sewing, but only seventeen finished projects is pretty slim pickings from which to write a review. Certainly not enough to do a top five series, especially when it takes a couple of weeks to write this single post.

The classes

Two in-person embroidery classes were taken at Nancys Stitch Studio in Wellington. The classes were hugely enjoyable, taken by a very experienced and talented embroiderer AnneMarie Moorhead.

The first class was Fred the Frog a lovely taster of goldwork techniques, on the left is the class sample and the right my unfinished piece. My piece will end up considerably smaller than the class sample as I want to mount it as a brooch. The girlfriend who did the class with me and I have a pact to finish our pieces by Easter 2020. This is entirely achievable with a few hours of stitching a week. Maybe I should take up watching television so that I could sew in front of it.

The second class was to make a hussif, which is essentially a long strip of fabric used to store basic sewing tools. These small sewing cases were given to soldiers as their housewife and are typical artifacts from the WW1 era. The hussifs we were making with AnneMarie are highly decorated whilst still being a practical item for storing sewing tools and small projects. Mine hasn't progressed far enough for pictures.

The third class of 2019 is Peggy Sagers of Silhouette Patterns on-line Pants Fitting 101 class. I was a bit wary about taking this on-line course having already fitted a pants muslin in person with Peggy in 2018. This class was brilliant. It started back in September and you can watch it as often as you want for four months. This cemented into my mind the principles I learnt in 2018 but also produced a few moments of enlightenment. I know I'm a Peggy fan girl but I can't recommend this class enough. Hopefully you will see the fruits of my enlightenment with a pair of well fitting trousers on this blog soon.

The purchases

Despite the meagre sewing output the fabric and pattern input was substantial and so the collection grew.

In 2019 I purchased sixteen second-hand patterns and twenty-four new Vogue patterns. I don't keep track of my independent pattern purchases so these thirty patterns are nowhere near my final total for the year. The one different thing about my pattern purchases this year is that I bought two Jalie patterns for men and the Japanese pattern book Men's clothes For All Seasons. I have good intentions of sewing for others in 2020.

As well as purchasing fabric from both The Fabric Store and Fabric Vision here in New Zealand I discovered a new localish source of fabric and patterns in 2019 Miss Maude Sewing. My favourite overseas fabric sources continue to be Silhouette Patterns; Marcy Tilton Fabrics; Cutting Line Designs; The Sewing Workshop and Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics. There are those who record how much fabric entered the building and how much left. This may be a good approach to horrify me into abstinence.

The sewing pattern purchases in particular required a bit of a rethink of my storage solutions and KonMariing the stash.

The organising

I accumulated many fabrics for the black, white and red Minnie Mouse wardrobe which was the focus of my sewing at the beginning of the year and features on the top row left and right as well as the bottom row left. The middle of the top row is evidence that my new rattan trunk was extremely useful for coat fabrics (I have another one which is still empty for more of the coat fabrics). Bottom right is a small sample of my Liberty of London fabrics, with the centre being fabrics I gathered together for other wardrobe plans that never eventuated.

The middle row shows my new pattern storage. This has worked extremely well and I love having my patterns organised and more accessible. It didn't encourage sewing but I did flick through them and think about possibilities.

The sewing

The Minnie Mouse wardrobe was not quite as extensive as first envisioned. However nearly half of my sewing fitted the black, white and red theme.  Clockwise from top left is TSW Ann's Red Letter Ensemble (tank and cardigan); Minnie Mouse jeans; Papercut Fjord Elongated Red Cardi; Ulysses Horizontal Hold Trench and The Sewing Workshop Era Floral Faux Fur Coat.

Ann's tank and cardigan by The Sewing Workshop are both too long because I lengthened the pattern. The cardigan is wearable but the tank bothers me. I have some ideas for shortening it without taking it apart. If that is successful it will stay in my wardrobe otherwise it is destined for the charity bag.

The Fjord cardi is still as scratchy as when I made it. Whilst still occupying space in the wardrobe it isn't worn and should really be exited.

With the jury still out on the floral faux fur coat only two of this montage of Minnie Mouse garments are a success - the jeans and the trench coat. Love them both and wear them often.

Then there is the forgotten dress which may be loved and worn but the black and white stripe Silhouette Patterns #4000 Swing Dress does not feature in a blog post and there are no pictures of it being worn. It too fits into the Minnie Mouse Wardrobe theme, so I was relatively consistent in following my wardrobe plan even if some of the finished items didn't feature in the original plan.

And the DKNY leggings. My self-drafted leggings pattern produced two new well loved pairs, the DKNY ITY knit on the left and right Double Diamond ITY knit. An ITY knit is a favourite for leggings and both these fabrics came from Silhouette Patterns.

The tunic with the leggings on the left started off as Silhouette Patterns #4000 Swing Dress which looked terrible so was cut down to tunic length worn once and left the wardrobe. The black stripe down the middle looks good in the photo but horrible on me in real life. So horrible in fact that there is no photographic evidence!

Two pairs of trousers that filled a wardrobe gap. Left are the Papercut Patterns Peter and the Wolf Coloured Mote jeans and on the right are the Silhouette Patterns Lana's Wildwood jeans. Both of these pairs of trousers are loved and worn. The fit isn't perfect but is suitable for appearances in public places. In 2020 I want to refine my trouser fitting skills using the knowledge gained from Peggy and develop well fitting trousers in the current more flared style.

Dresses are my biggest success story of 2019 having made five of them, using a variety of patterns both old and new, mainly from independent pattern designers (only one dress is made from an OOP Vogue pattern). Clockwise from top left is Vogue 9243 Twirling Rebecca Taylor Dress; Style Arc Toni Mike Designer dress; Style Arc Gertrude House of Gifts Christmas Dress; Kobayashi Squiggle Squares TNT Midi Dress and in the middle the Style Arc Rosie Alice top.

With the exception of the Christmas dress which hasn't been made long enough for a final verdict all of these garments were a success. My favourites are the Kobayashi dress and Vogue 9243 twirling dress.

The top was a bit of a wildcard, meant to go with my Wildwood jeans. The two don't go together at all but the top is great with other trousers. Given the substantial alterations it would be more apt to describe it as a top loosely based on the Style Arc Rosie pattern.

Sewing out and about

Only two trips away involved taking my sewing machine this year, our Easter break in Ahipara and our December weekend away in Te Miko. My Singer Featherweight seems to enjoy tripping around New Zealand and it is great to have the opportunity to sew when the weather is inclement.

Top row left and centre at Ahipara, Northland; and right at Te Miko, West Coast.

The Easter trip to Ahipara saw me finish sewing Ann's tank and cardigan, as well as start a new pair of Silhouette Patterns #3300 Lana's Jeans in deep red linen metallic blend, which remain unfinished (bottom left).

2019 reflections

More time was spent thinking about sewing this year than actually doing it and in many respects I am fine with that. My wardrobe is well stocked and I get pleasure from the clothes I have. The sticking point is what causes the lack of creativity. I give so much of my mental energy to work that I don't have enough in reserve to want to spend the weekend using more of it to pursue my creativity. Yet the route to growth is through practice. If I want my creativity to flourish those skills need more use. I also need to use a lot more fabric or curb my purchasing before the house is completely overrun.

Surprisingly I have enjoyed the tidying not so much the activity itself but the end satisfaction of seeing a mountain of fabric neatly ordered. It is much easier to see what is in the boxes, to select fabrics for a project or just stroke and imagine.

Goals for 2020

From a word perspective I am still working on balance and I wonder if this should be a theme for life rather than just twelve months. I am strangely reluctant to abandon this word for another when I haven't achieved a successful balance in either of the past two years.

On the sewing front there have been a few occasions where I have developed the plan for a sew-along but not done the sewing. One of my goals for 2020 is to not only develop the plan but do the sewing and post my entry. I am very tempted by the Stitchers Guild Reloaded 2019 Sewing with a Plan. I have an inspiration photo and a collection of possible fabrics. The rules this year are very permissible and in theory it is entirely feasible to make 10 garments by the end of April. Making could start on 26 December when I had ten days of Christmas holiday remaining yet I have sewn nothing which rather puts completion in doubt. The wheels are still turning on this idea. For it to have any possibility of success I would need to develop a schedule of what gets sewn when and stick to it. And so the light of inspiration is snuffed out or maybe not...

The Sunset SWAP

If I do rouse myself to participate in the Stitchers Guild SWAP I have the ideal project for something I have never done before. I dug out the pattern for The Smaller Dress by Julian Roberts which is a free pattern available on the Centre for Pattern Design website. This is a subtraction cut dress and the lines of the finished garment look avant garde but wearable. Will be interesting to see how mine turns out.

Style Arc Gertrude House of Gifts Christmas Dress

For a change this was a fast moving fabric and pattern (fast fashion?) with no stash maturation. The fabric was ordered on 29 November, received on 7 December, cut up on 12 December with sewing starting on 15 December. The pattern was purchased on 17 November. Almost unheard of in my sewing life for two recent purchases to come together so quickly.

The finished garment

I'm not sure how long after Christmas you can wear your Christmas dress. As you can see from me posing in the sunshine by the grapevine on 27 December I was a bit ambivalent, wearing it with my Camper sneakers rather than my red shoes.

Can you wear a dress covered in baubles and presents past Twelfth Night? Does wearing it past 5 January cause bad luck like leaving your Christmas decorations up? Although there is also a superstition that Christmas decorations not taken down by Twelfth Night should be left up until Candlemas Day (2nd February) and then taken down. Don't think I'll be wearing this dress over the next month it is now safely ensconced in the wardrobe until December. Tidied away like the Christmas decorations.

There was a thread on Pattern Review about sewing old patterns and did that make you look frumpy. So here I am in a new Style Arc pattern feeling frumpy. The big contributor to the frumpiness is the cardigan, completely the wrong length for this dress but good from a colour perspective. Or maybe its the too high neckline or the flat sneakers. Whatever it is this picture does not have me feeling my best.

The fabric

A pre-Christmas impulse purchase from Liberty of London (I succumbed to their marketing email). The fabric was washed as soon as it arrived and cut out soon after to make the Gertrude Designer dress. The stash came into play for the lining fabric which is a plain black cotton voile.

Liberty of London House of Gifts navy tana lawn

The pattern

The Gertrude Designer dress is described by Style Arc as a designer dress featuring a fitted bodice, dropped shoulder line, tucked sleeves, inverted pleats and a back zip. The reverse inverted pleats give this designer dress its unique shape. This dress has a fitted bodice along with a dropped shoulder. The shape of the engineered sleeve is created by the under-sleeve tucks. The essential side pockets and mid-calf length give this dress its designer feel.

Suggested fabrics are washed linen, crepe, silk and rayon, so similar to the tana lawn I chose to use.

The pattern alterations

Amazingly no pattern alterations were made to this dress. Based on the finished pattern measurements I cut a straight size 12 (I did check the sizing by comparing to my TNT dress pattern). No forward shoulder or sway back. The only change I had to make when cutting out the dress was to shorten it to knee length because I didn't have enough fabric for anything longer. I also omitted the back zipper.

As this is a limited wear dress being made from a Christmas print I did wonder about just doing plain short sleeves without the tuck detail but decided in the end to just go with the pattern flow.

If I make this dress again there will be alterations, at the minimum: a sway back adjustment; shortened sleeves and lowered neckline.

The sewing

This was certainly not a quick sew for me partly because I used french seams and lined it but the pattern itself has a number of details that take time.

There are a number of steps to construct each of the eight bodice pieces (two front outer fabric, two front lining, two back outer fabric, two back lining).
Step one: sew the bodice princess seams together including the inverted pleats at the skirt end. Press the seam open and the pleats flat.
Step two: sew the centre front and centre back seams (two of each). I used French seams on these four seams.
Step three: add the two raglan sleeve pieces to each of the front and back sections. Press the seams open.
Step four: sew the shoulders of the dress and of the lining together. Press the seams open.
Step five: Attach the lining and dress together at the neckline. Trim the neckline seam and under-stitch.
Step six: For the side seams I used French seams and treated the dress and lining as one but made the sewing more complicated by keeping the pockets.

So what about the pockets. I puzzled this a great deal in one of my early morning awake sessions, trying to work out how I could have a pocket in a French seam. I tried to take pictures as I went along but of course when deep into sewing you forget all about pictures.

Step one: sew the pocket bags around the edge wrong sides together leaving a small area unsewn at each end by the side seam edge.
Step two: sew each side of the pocket bag to its corresponding dress side seam wrong sides together. Sew the dress side seam (wrong sides together) up to the pocket bag in two steps - hem to pocket bag, underarm to pocket bag.
Step three: press the first part of the French seam towards the pocket bag.
Step four: sew each side of the pocket bag to its corresponding dress side seam right sides together. This is where you need the small unsewn area of the pocket bag so you can separate the two halves of the pocket bag to sew them to the corresponding side seam. Press the finished French seam of the pocket bag towards the pocket bag.
Step five (no picture): Sew the dress side seam's second part of the French seam. This is sewn how you would conventionally sew the side seam with pocket bag in one continuous length - hem to pocket bag, around the pocket bag, pocket bag to underarm.
Step six (no picture): press the French seam towards centre front in order for your pocket bag to be facing the right direction.

Update 7 February 2020: In early January the Bernina blog (We all Sew) wrote a post which has a different approach to sewing pockets in French seams which can be found here.

The sleeves because of the tuck detail consist of an under and upper sleeve. The tucks were sewn into the under sleeve, the shoulder dart sewn in the upper sleeve and both pressed. The under and upper sleeve were sewn together with French seams and a narrow hem was machine stitched. Once the dress side seams were sewn the unlined two piece sleeve could be inserted also using French seams, treating the dress body lining and outer fabric as one.

The final step was to hand sew a narrow hem. As I only had a limited amount of fabric (two metres) I had made the dress as long as possible but the only way I could have the hem end just below my knee cap was to have a 1" hem (⅜" for the first fold and ⅝" for the second).

After all that sewing the dress was finished on Boxing Day and has had minimal wear. Waiting for Christmas 2020 to shine!

There is much discussion about the quality of Style Arc directions. For me the Gertrude Designer Dress instructions were adequate clearly illustrating how to construct the princess seam tucks and the tucks in the under sleeve. This was pretty much the only time I referred to the pattern instructions, especially as I lined the dress and had to decide how I wanted to treat the lining and outer dress fabrics.

Outfit of the day

Here is the dress in action being Mrs Claus handing Christmas presents to my beloved (which he had to wait until Boxing Day for). I know pathetic but if you are going to the trouble of making a Christmas dress it has to have some purpose and he didn't seem to mind waiting the extra day (or twelve hours if we celebrated with our northern hemisphere family!). He also appreciated the pre-Christmas clean the house got which is what caused the sewing delay.

To be perfectly honest I felt more Christmassy dressed in my Twirling Rebecca Taylor dress with a red cropped top and United Nude Lev Wrap Lo red shoes than I did in my House of Gifts Christmas dress, even wearing the same red shoes.

Sewing out and about

The dress was started two Sunday's before Christmas whilst we were away on the West Coast. The Sunday afternoon was wet and miserable so whilst my beloved read his book I sewed at the little dining table.

After sewing the Christmas dress I gave the little Featherweight a Christmas treat with a good dust, oil and grease, plus I finally replaced her bed cushions (the little rubber feet).

The bed cushions are supposed to grip the sewing surface for vibration and noise absorption. Mine unsurprisingly given the age of the machine were hard and smooshed down.  To remove the old worn cushions I had to dig out the old rubber with a screwdriver. I got better at the digging out with each one I removed. The picture below left shows all four cushions removed and on the right shows the difference between two new ones (face up and face down) compared with the older cushions.

Vogue 1321 Donna Karan Red Shibori Coat

This post is slightly cheating as the coat was made way back in 2013 from some fabulous fabric hand dyed by a group of local quilters (Cheryl Comfort, Catherine McDonald and Chris Tait). I was motivated to write this blog post because one of the sewers I follow has this pattern on a shortlist for her winter coat and there is only one review for it on Pattern Review.

Even though this coat is now six years old it is still a favourite and attracts lots of comments. On its first outing it went for a show and tell visit to the fabric dyers at Crafty Christchurch where it was photographed by a journalist from our local free lifestyle magazine Metropol and even featured in a tiny picture on the events page. If I was really dedicated to documenting my sewing I would still have a copy of the magazine picture posted in my scrapbook but alas I am not and the magazine has long since left the building.

The finished garment

The photos on the dress form were taken a few years ago (pre-blog) when I had a long session of photographing my me-made clothes as a record of my sewing adventures, as I realised how much I enjoyed flicking through the photo album of my embroidery yet hadn't bothered photographing my sewing.  The photographs of the coat being worn were taken a couple of weeks ago on a very sunny Saturday.

The fabric

The fabrics are a hand-dyed red with a matching indigo shibori overdyed fabric. Two one metre pieces of fabric were purchased at the 2012 Crafty Christchurch event in the Geodome in Hagley Park. When I decided to make this coat the original fabric was posted to one of the quilters to get some more dyed to match as I needed three metres of each fabric. I also bought a metre piece of indigo dyed fabric to make a belt but then used a purchased belt already in my possession.

The overdyed fabric is used for the coat skirt with the plain red being the upper body, sleeves and facings. The fabrics were difficult to photograph to show their true colours. The pictures of the finished garment give a better colour representation.

Only Catherine McDonald (Mallee Textiles) of the original group of quilters still dyes fabric for sale, which is a shame as they created some fabulous fabrics.

The hand-dyed cotton was underlined with an heirloom cotton batting that is almost like flannelette but more loosely woven.  The lining is a navy blue coloured silk twill.

The pattern

Vogue's description is very loose fitting, unlined, double breasted coat has front extending into collar, shoulder pads, dropped shoulders, top stitched darts,side front pockets and seams, stitched hems, three-piece sleeves with button tab, thread loops, raw edge finish and overlapped seams. Purchased belt.

The suggested fabrics are: lightweight melton, boiled wool, wool double knit. Lining to cover the shoulder pads and for the pockets: china silk, crepe de chine.

With my normal disregard for the designer I made my coat in a lovely cotton fabric, sewed the seams as normal right side together and added a lining.

The pattern alterations

As Vogue indicates in the description this pattern is very loose fitting. For me this means entirely too big and the size to make is chosen based on the finished garment measurements printed on the pattern. The size 10 provided the amount of ease I wanted whilst based on the pattern sizing I should have sewn size 16. The finished garment measurements for the size 10 are bust 43½"; waist 38"; and hip 58½". This supposedly fits someone with a bust of 32½"; waist 25" and hip 34½". No wonder a belt is needed.

My pattern back and front on top of the original pattern tissue

The other alterations were to lengthen the bodice 1" above the lengthen and shorten line. Use fisheye darts for the front and back outer garment pieces instead of the open darts ending at the waistline. Double the size of the darts in the front collar from ⅝" to 1¼" to reduce the width slightly.

As I wanted to use two fabrics, one for the upper body and one for the skirt a line was marked on each of the pattern pieces with the seam allowance being added directly on the fabric as it was cut out.

New pattern pieces were made for the front lining from the front pattern piece minus the front facing. The back pattern piece was used as is but placed on the fabric fold with extra fabric at centre back to make a pleat for ease of movement. The side front pattern piece was used for both the outer garment fabric and the lining.

The sewing

The sewing instructions assume you are using a fabric that doesn't fray and that the coat is unlined. As neither of these is true for my coat I followed the sewing instructions but adapted them where necessary. Seams were sewn right sides together rather than overlapped, darts were sewn together not slashed and overlapped.

As the coat was lined I didn't bother binding the edges of the pockets but I did make belt loops of the appropriate size for my RTW belt. The pattern description mentions thread loops which appear to be for the belt but the pattern directions don't mention the making of thread loops. For my wide belt thread loops would have been inadequate, proper fabric belt loops were needed!

The lining fabric was perfect for the covered snaps which were extremely easy to make using the pattern instructions. Ingenious to put both circles of fabric over the ball half of the snap, then snap the ball and socket sections together so the circles of silk are held perfectly in place whilst you draw up the gathers and fasten off - one circle for each half of the snap.  The hole in the silk was made using an awl rather than cutting the silk.

In conclusion

This was a fabulous garment to sew that has stood the test of time and still brings me joy. Now that I have been reminded about this pattern I quite fancy it in a nice wool as per the suggested fabrics but lengthened a few inches to lower calf length.

Vogue 9243 Twirling Rebecca Taylor Dress

I impulsively purchased a linen top in what to me is a pale orange colour (they call it vanilla), that has an extreme high low hem. The high is so high it makes it a cropped top but I envisaged it being worn over the orange dress in my imaginary orange summer wardrobe. I wanted to use Vogue 9243 for my orange dress but then I bought a sleeveless knit dress for a work event (no time to make anything) which left me pondering an alternative fabric - enter this lovely Rebecca Taylor ponte like knit.

The orange wardrobe may become a Stitcher's Guild SWAP 2020, a yearly wardrobe sewing contest to sew eleven garments that all work together. This year the rules are extremely permissive which is what tempts me but I'm not very motivated by deadlines in my sewing life. SWAP sewing happens over a four month period, beginning during my Christmas holiday so eleven garments should be extremely doable. All I need to do is commit!!

The finished garment

This dress is fantabulous for twirling, as well as feeling lovely and swishy when you walk. For the twirling action shots a large area of garden was needed and I wasn't entirely steady on my feet but it was fun.

Excuse the closed eyes the sun was blinding (but the best light for photographs)

The fabric

The Rebecca Taylor cotton poly knit has a lovely brushed back that makes it snuggly to wear but on the downside not suitable for a really hot summer's day. The fabric came from Silhouette Patterns and was bought to be paired with some leather (also from Silhouette Patterns) to make a trench like coat. The leather is more of a black brown colour than I anticipated and the Rebecca Taylor knit was completely the wrong colour so on to plan B...

The pattern

Vogue 9243 is copyrighted 1985 so an oldie but a goodie. A few years before I got back into sewing I had a big clear out of my patterns and most of them went to my local Bernina Sewing Centre. The ones I kept were mostly Vogue Designer patterns as well as a few other Vogue patterns that I felt were classics. This is one of the survivors.

It was a very interesting exercise to look at the pile of patterns and decide which to keep and which to discard especially to find the vast majority of those retained were Vogue. Nowadays I hardly even look at the offerings from the other big four pattern companies.

Discussing the age of the pattern with a colleague and the fact that it had survived a cull she immediately guessed it was a Vogue pattern. What is it about the Vogue patterns that make them keepers?

The dress is described as a semi-fitted and flared pullover dress, below mid-calf or lower calf, has back neck slit with button/loop, low cutaway armholes and side pockets. Narrow hem. Purchased belt.

Suggested fabrics are: Jersey, stable knits, light weight linen, crepe-de-chine and silk likely Jacquard. So for once I followed instructions as the Rebecca Taylor fabric is a very stable knit.

The pattern alterations

I overlaid the V9243 pattern pieces, matching at the waistline, with my TNT knit dress (a Silhouette Patterns combination of #195 Sweater Set and #2010 Yoga Skirt) and used that for the upper part of the dress merging back into V9243 size 10 below the french dart. The shoulder seam width is as per the original V9243, but the neckline was lowered slightly. The pattern was also lengthened 4".

Vogue 9243 compared to the TNT knit dress pattern

Vogue 9243 original pattern compared to the Twirling Rebecca Taylor Dress

This pattern would be fine to use for a woven version but there was too much ease for a knit fabric.

The sewing

Yet another extremely quick sew on the overlocker, apart from the hem and stay stitching around the neckline and armholes. The neckline and armholes were turned under at the stay stitching line and sewn down. As this was a knit the back neck slit with button loop was unnecessary.

I wasn't sure how the pockets would work in this knit so I only added one pocket on the right hand side really just as a place for my handkerchief to go. The pocket has proved quite stable so if the pattern is made again I might go mad and have two pockets.

The orange wardrobe part II

The week's workday wardrobe was planned around black/white and orange. None of these garments featured in my orange summer wardrobe so when I do start sewing that plan I will have no shortage of other clothes to mix in.

Monday to Thursday, left to right: Style Arc Maris Orange silk linen top with WORLD Two Wrongs Trouser Black White Mosaic; Witchery Vivid Coral Detail Swing Knit Dress; Witchery Vivid Coral Rib Elbow Sleeve Knit Top with same WORLD trousers as Monday; V9243 Twirling RT dress with Minx C Reed Clothing Vanilla Short Angel Wings linen top; all week I wore the Ulysses Horizontal Hold trench coat with an orange bucket bag, CODA orange paper brooch and United Nude Solid Fold mono shoes

The Witchery Vivd Coral Detail Swing knit dress was purchased for a work event after I spied it in the Witchery shop at Wellington airport. It looked fabulous paired with my blue jacket, CODA orange paper brooch and Vic Matiē Theo navy shoes. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it, the closest I got was an outfit earlier in the same week, with a carefully staged selfie in the bathroom at work!

The Sewing Workshop Era Floral Faux Fur Coat

Whilst still deep into my sewing theme of the Minnie Mouse red white and black wardrobe I found a fun fabric to make a fabulous winter coat. I admired it for a while and then The Sewing Workshop had a promotion and yay I got 20% off. In all honesty it was a good marketing ploy as whilst I had been hesitant to buy it all full price as soon as the discount came along I had hit the buy button before rational thought had any chance of intervening.

The finished garment

Spring has very much sprung with the fading blossoms on the crab apple tree providing the back drop for my new winter coat. Maybe after a few months resting in the wardrobe I will have got over the initial lack of love for the finished coat. Its redeeming feature is the wonderful lining.

You might notice there are no pictures of it buttoned up. That is because it doesn't have buttons yet. I have the buttons just can't decide how I want to make the closure. Favourite idea at the moment is to have a leather fabric loop rather than a buttonhole. Will wait for next winter before I make my final choice.

 Worn with Andrea Moore boyfriend jeans and mohair jumper; United Nude Solid Fold shoe in colour mono

The fabric

This is one of the more expensive fabrics I have ever bought at US$69 per yard and the 20% off basically covered the cost of shipping.

In the pictures it looked completely fabulous. When it arrived I was a bit disappointed with how flimsy the knit backing was and to me not strong enough to support the faux fur with any longevity. There were also a few flaws in the fabric (not that I discovered this until many months later when I was cutting out). Despite this I was still excited to make a winter coat with it. The only demotivating factor was that we weren't having a winter, sure we had more grey days than normal but the crisp blue sky winter days were few and far between. In fact my most worn coat this winter has been the Horizontal Hold trench (albeit with an Ecopossum cardi under it on some occasions) which given it is a cotton/acrylic mix and therefore provides very little warmth despite being a heavyweight jacquard indicates how mild winter has been.

Initially I was going to use a plain black warm back coat lining but then I found this perfect polyester satin fabric at a local fabric store. I don't normally like using synthetic fabric but as the faux fur was anything but natural nothing was lost by using this polyester fabric for the lining.

The fabric alterations

Given my reservations about the strength of the faux fur fabric and the fact that I wanted a warm back lining additions were made to both fabrics.

For the faux fur it was block fused with a tricot interfacing to retain the original fabric hand. It was tricky to fuse this as the faux fur made the fabric quite lumpy and the iron had to be manoeuvred between the fur to make good contact with the fabric.

For the lining it was block fused with a polyester fusible quilt batting.

The pattern

The Sewing Workshop Era jacket description a loose-fitting, below-waist jacket has high turn-down collar with deep mitred corners, side vent openings extending above waist, one-piece sleeves with deep hems and vents. Two-button front closure and decorative buttons at vent and sleeve openings. All edges finished with wide hems and mitred corners. Wrong side will show.

Suggested fabrics are: linen, wool, medium to heavy weight silk, crisp sheers, cotton, boucle, sweater knit, and novelty weaves. Wrong side of fabric will show.

The pattern alterations

The obvious and pretty much the only pattern alteration is that I lengthened the jacket by 23" to create a coat, but keeping the high low hem shape of the original jacket. To determine the extra length needed and the width at the hem edge I measured the Victory Ulysses trench. The side seams have no shaping being a straight line from the underarm to the hem. They would have benefited from some shaping to give more width at the hip.

The pattern is designed with a lot of ease so I chose to use the XS size with a finished bust measurement of 46" (meant for a 31" bust) and I am happy with this choice.

The other addition I made to the pattern was to add a welt pocket. Both the design and position on the coat are based on Vogue 1836 an Issey Miyake pattern I have made before.

Left: front pattern piece; right: back pattern piece

I used the XS sleeve lengthened by 2¾". This gives a sleeve that is pretty tight on the forearm so I sewed it with a ¼" seam allowance to give me an extra ¾" - not ideal but wearable. Next time I make this (if ever) I will widen the sleeve from the bicep down to the hem by at least ½" on each side.

The lining fabric used the same pattern pieces as the outer garment. The only difference was I omitted the 3⅝" hem around the outer edge of the garment; removed the collar; and added a 2" box pleat at centre back for movement.

The sewing

The first thing sewn was the lining to check that I was happy with the fit including the length. This is when I discovered that the sleeves were too tight at the forearm and reduced the seam allowance.

Even though the faux fur fabric was block fused to tricot interfacing it had a tendency to fray so all of the fabric piece edges were overlocked before being sewn together on my little Singer Featherweight.

The pattern instructions were good and easy to follow, although I missed steps and adapted others where I had changed the garment design. The one area where I am still perplexed is the collar. In the pattern instructions and pictures the collar is the same height all the way around but mine is definitely higher in the back. I have no idea what I did to get this significant variation in height.

The welt pocket was sewn using the instructions from V1836, except for two things: (1) I did a double rather than single welt; and (2) I forgot to follow the instructions to enclose the cut edges on one of the pockets and just overlocked the edges of the pocket bags together. It doesn't matter in this coat given it is fully lined but it is a nice touch in V1836 which is unlined.  The welt uses a plain back cotton fabric and the pocket bags are the lining fabric.

The real feature of this pattern that I absolutely love is the 3⅝" hem. The ⅝" is folded under then the corners are mitred and the 3" hem turned to the inside and top stitched. My lining fabric goes to the point where the hem is turned up and is fully enclosed by the hem.

Sometimes although I read the description of the garment on the pattern it doesn't actually sink in. Case in point is this coat. The collar is too high at the back which shouldn't be a surprise as the description is "high turned-down collar". Hmm turned down - not what I wanted. So when I finally get around to putting the buttons on I will also undo the collar and reduce the height. Reverse sewing in this fabric is not fun as the stitches pretty much disappear because of the fur and loose fabric weave.

To be completely truthful until I wrote this blog post the coat was more than likely destined to never be worn just live as is in the wardrobe until it was passed on to a charity shop. Now that I have been reminded just how extravagant I was when I bought this fabric, as well as looking at the photos where it seems more wearable (and not a big furry joke) it may get the necessary changes including buttons and be worn. This coat was sewn in September and it really is amazing how differently we can feel about the clothes we make once a little time has passed. Definitely no love at first sight with this make but I can feel it growing on me.