Safety Vest Orange

You smart cookies guessed right. It WAS a Lady Grey. 

Now give yourselves a pat on the back.

I made my first version of this wonderful coat a couple of years ago and it gets SO much wear. I wanted to make an updated version in a heavier fabric for the cold winter we have had this year so I was on the lookout for some pretty coating fabric.

I planned a drive in to the city on my day off and luckily my lovely man was all freed up too. He suggested that he chauffeur me around to the fabric hotspots and pop a lunch in there somewhere too. 

Umm. Yes please. Your buying...

On the list of visits were Rathdowne Fabrics, The Fabric Store and Tessuti.  

I couldn't find anything in a coat weight at Rathdown but still managed to spend $100. Quite easily.... Silk for the coat lining, jacquard & chambray... oh my!

At The Fabric Store there were many beautiful coatings to choose from. After testing my husbands patience with "What about this one" a thousand times, I settled on this crazy orangey red coloured wool. It is so bright! stings the eyeballs...

I like to think of it as a safety vest orange. Maybe I should be holding a stop sign in these pictures.

bound buttonhole, chubby hand.

 For some reason I only purchased 2.5 metres of this stuff even though the pattern calls for 4.. umm what... 

I managed to squeeze all the pieces out except for the belt. After much hair pulling it was down to the wire. I had to slim down the belt and cut 4 pieces instead of 2 so there is a seam at the middle back. No biggie. 

Construction was fine. This wool sewed like butter and everything matched up perfectly. Thank you Sarai! Bound buttonhole went fine and dandy. And the button? well last year I found a local cafe that has a little sewing store attached that sells vintage fabric, trims etc. I found a whole box of these buttons and have used them on pretty much every single coat I have ever made. I still have about a billion left so its safe to say that I won't be needing to buy coat buttons any time soon. 

The box says vegetable ivory... does anybody have any idea what that is???

So things were going pretty darn smoothly. That is until we got to the lining...

I purchased the lovely silk crepe de chine at Rathdowne Fabrics after falling deeply in love with the bird/tree print. This love blinded me to the fact that is was going to be so painfully slippery and flimsy to work with. When cutting the lining, I couldn't so much as breathe near it without it flying around everywhere. 

So. bloody. Annoying.

Anyway. After a bunch of swear words (this seems to be a common thing in the sewing room here) the lining was sewn up and attached to the coat. A few more minor touches and she was cooked.

I am in love with this pattern. flattering and fun. Hands up who loves Colette patterns?

The deets:

Pattern: Colette - Lady Grey

Fabric: 100% wool coating, 100% silk lining (I hate you)

Notions: Button from the bottomless pit

Time: About 3 Sunday afternoons

And look at how this colour clashes with my fake red hair. Wonderous...

Cheerio!

xx

Sidenote: I wrote this post at approx. 5:50am. Apologies for any spelling errors or other discrepancies. Sorry not sorry.