I made this new coat-ish/dress-ish/shirt-ish sort of a thing for myself!
How beautiful is this linen?? It’s stunning, isn’t it. I’m head over heels in love with the print – gorgeously colourful, bird-strewn, with the looks of an ancient, beautiful patchwork… the colours are so painterly/flower-garden with that lovely distressed quality that appeals to my quixotic little heart that likes stuff to be rustic but also pretty too. I’d only bought a shortish length really, and it really teetered on the verge of being Too Good To Cut, I had it laid out for quite a while, trying to gathering the courage to take the scissors to it! I only managed it really because it was on my list of twelve things and having those intentions blogged sorta forces me to stick by my own self-commitments. I bought it some time last year from Fabulous Fabrics, using a voucher that was a birthday gift from some of my lovely friends.
The pattern is the Carolyn pj pattern by Closet Core patterns, yes, the one named after ME! I can’t say still how thrilled I STILL am to have a pattern named after me, it was such a huge honour, and I often think how I’d like to have more of “my” pattern in my own wardrobe too… I still wear my white Carolyn shirt quite a lot. I saw Rosie from ArtworkerProjects had made her Carolyn as a shirtdress, and this made me think I’d like to make something like that, and I’d also seen, and pinned this beautiful coat once upon a time, and the two thoughts slowly alchemistry-ed and absolved themselves into this one project in my mind, eventually…
I lengthened the body pieces, obviously, and I also lengthened the turning point of the lapel a little, so the coat buttons a little lower than it does on the pattern. The other, internal, change I made was to add a back facing… this stabilises this area, something not necessary in a shirt but that you definitely want in a coat, for sure!
Oh, I added pockets… #ofcourse
I finished all the internal raw edges with HongKong seaming… because obviously in a garment that will flap open while you’re wearing it you want the insides to be as pretty as possible! For this, I used the leftovers of the turquoise poplin, that I used for one of the masks I made for Craig’s Mum.
Now’s the moment when I indulge in a bit of zero-waste bragging, ahem #insufferable? #moi? … so; I made a long bias strip using the entirety of the turquoise leftovers and have about 15cm of it left… when this happens in a project it’s actually SO satisfying!! Also, there are only the smallest of the colourful linen print scraps leftover too… I might have enough for a doll’s mini-dress, but not much else!
For the button, and continuing on with my policy of not buying any buttons unless I Absolutely Have To; I found this purple, wool-covered button in my stash, and I love how it doesn’t really match, but at the same time it’s kind of a perfect match too.
So, if you hate obsessiveness in sewing, look away right now. I initially just used off- white thread in my bobbin for when I stitched down the front and back facings… and it looked pretty terrible. I tried to not let it bother me, but ultimately twas a lost cause… eventually I had to unpick most of it and re-do it using matching threads. So, some of the sections are in blue, some are in red, some are in off-white and some in pink. Yes, this is a weird thing to do, but I’m very satisfied with how it looks, so… yeah. I think it was worth unpicking and re-doing, from my point of view!
This is the latest, and ninth, thing in my little collection of twelve things, that I proposed I would make for myself at the beginning of the year and … regretted…? many times over?!?! ok, not so much “regretted-regretted”, because I sincerely love all the fabrics, and have sincerely loved all of the finished products too, just “regretted” as in “have struggled with” as in I just don’t have as much spare time nowadays to lavish on them as I initially thought I would. I’m NOT trying to busy-brag because I kinda loooooathe when some people go on and on about not having time for fun stuff like it’s your job or something, so I apologise for those overtones… wooo! Sorry about that.
Anyway! I’m so happy I’ve got this made! and also that I stuck with my original “coat” plan and didn’t get sidetracked into some little sundress like I was SORELY tempted to do instead, multiple times over! I really love it!
Details:
Coat; from the Closet Core patterns Carolyn pj pattern, linen from Fabulous Fabrics
White dress; Vogue 1351, white crepe from Fabulous Fabrics, details here
Sandals; ye olde favourites from Zomp boutique
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