A Little Something For Fun

A bad case of bronchitis has kept me from sewing or blogging but I did have a couple of things made before it hit me.

I had quite a big length of fabric left over from my sister's coat so I'll show you what I came up with. I had a lot of fun with this one. I used this  OOP Marci Tilton Vogue pattern View A which I've never made and have always wanted to try out.

Actually, my version is the same colour as the pattern envelope.

 I just decided to wrap the edges including the neckline with strips of fabric which being a knit was quite doable without cutting them on the bias.I stitched,then simply trimmed close to the stitching line and I was done.

I like the way the edges "ruffled "a bit.

                                                               

And the way the raw edges show up. Very mod, don't you think!

My cute top needed something more so I found these great buttons and thought they were just the right finishing touch.

What do you think...with or without the buttons???

Here it is by itself as worn now.

Or with a turtle neck for winter.

I made the back plain  without the zig zag effect.

I love this thing. It is so cozy to wear. And DH said it's cute, always a plus.
I would have thought the fabric  too heavy for indoor wear but not so. I also bought the white version  (but again at Fabricville) and it will probably become a cardigan.

What do you think? I want to try this pattern once again in View B which I guess I have  made before  here.

I have a couple more things to show you but they  will have to wait till later. That's all the energy I have for now!

Happy sewing from

A Fall Coat for my Sister...Burda

Thanks to all who visited or left comments about my last post. I wanted to answer Susan's            question about fitting for the tummy area. If you send me an email, Susan,I would be glad to address that fairly easy to do alteration.

My sister had a milestone birthday last month and my gift to her was a jacket similar to this one of mine that she absolutely loved.

I found this fabric at Marci Tilton .com

and was about to order it but I was so excited to find it at Fabricville albeit at a much steeper price. It happened that there was a 50% off sale at Fabricville for two days and so I snapped it up. It has the same properties as my (above)jacket which is what my sister admired  most about it.As you can tell by the photo, it is a "quilted", fairly hefty textile that feels and looks  like a very soft cotton.

I had told my sis that I wasn't going to make her an identical jacket so I chose Burda  7072 View A.
I made a muslin , perfected the fit and I was on my way.

 It took me a week to achieve the end result and my sister loves it ( I think ).

 I had

planned to use the faux leather trim along the princess seam lines but these are placed so far to almost  the under arms that after trying that , I realized it was not a good look.I ended up, as you can see, trimming  the neckline ,center fronts and sleeves.

The bound buttonholes were made out of the faux.leather as well and  I added  leather buttons to complete the look.

Oh, but no! That's not all! I also added  a bit more leather trim on my self  my own self designed pockets.

My own jacket is unlined so I decided to do the same for this coat.Normally, I would add Hong Kong finishes to the inside seams of an unlined garment but there were so many seams in this coat that I decided to use a decorative ,variegated rayon  thread instead, Isn't it cool?

Notice the construction of the sleeves and under arms. They were not easy to achieve. Mine are not perfect but I think they are acceptable.

                                                                                       

To add the faux leather trim, I cut bias strips which I sewed   to the outside , then wrapped around to the inside, pinned and then from the right side, I stitched in the ditch. Lastly, I trimmed close to the stitching line. This is not difficult to achieve .

So what do you think. Are the pockets "too much" ?

Helena really seems to love her coat. It ended up quite similar to mine, but  WHATEVER !

So now on to something easy before I start my Christmas sewing.
I hope you found time to sew this week and Happy Weekend Sewing!