Jalie Tania Coatigan

This was one of those super quick ideas... I have lots of big coats, but since I can't go anywhere they're not getting worn much this winter. What my wardrobe was missing was an easy to throw on car coat. Something for the supermarket run, which is my one outing of the week.

Enter the Jalie Tania coatigan:

I decided on Saturday that I would make this. I traced the pattern off and rummaged around for wool coating remnants. I knew I didn't have enough for a whole coat, but I had this green/black coating, and thought I had enough of a blue to mix the two. 

Not nearly enough of the blue and barely enough of the green/black. The collar needed to be pieced with a centre seam and the inner collar is actually another black wool melton, but it's not really noticeable.

What I did have a little leftover of, was this check wool (flannel weight) that I'd used for P's Jean Paul Gaultier culottes all of six years ago!

I cut it on the bias, fused it to some heavyweight interfacing (the only thing I had to purchase - thank Fabric Deluxe!) and then found another wool flannel leftover (from these shorts), fused that to more interfacing, then basted the two together and treated them as one. Together they were so close to wool melton coating weight it worked perfectly.

I did all the cutting on Saturday afternoon as the kids watched a movie. By Sunday morning I'd decided that i just can't abide unlined jackets, and my mismatched wool flannels would have made for very odd insides anyway.. So I rummaged through the linings stash and found this lovely emerald green lining that was part of my friend's mum's bequeathed stash.

The Tania coatigan does come with a digital add-on for a lining but I really couldn't be bothered printing that off and retracing everything. So I did my "usual" way: I overlapped the front and back pattern pieces so they were single top/bottom pieces. I cut the back piece on the fold which gave me the 2cm of seam allowance (normally the centre back seam) as a pleat  to add a bit of wearing ease.

I've finished the bottom with a kind of mostly bagged and then eventually stitched with the hemming which is indescribable and possibly unrepeatable. ;) but it saved me from any handstitching at all. The lining has an extra 3/8" or so of length at both sleeves and hem so it slightly overhangs the stitching line, also giving that bit of vertical wearing ease.

by this time I was really enjoying myself and so I decided to finish the facing with some bias binding from the very last of the wool flannel. I also threw in a hanging loop and a label. I've stitched the facing down which is visible on the back of the coat - a bit unorthodox, but it's a fairly utilitarian looking coat anyway, and that allows the hanging loop to be functional without lifting the facing up.

I finished sewing it late Sunday night (OK, technically it was Monday morning) and I pretty much haven't taken it off since then.

I chose size V with equates to a european 42, and was the lower of the two sizes my measurements fell between. Given I was using a coating and adding a lining I might have been wiser to size up. It's a tiny bit tight across the back shoulders if I have a heavy jumper underneath and the sleeves are relatively narrow for a coat. This size would be perfect in an unlined linen summer version.

As it is, it works perfectly over a t-shirt, and is exactly the kind of thing I needed to throw on for short outings. Not as big as a full coat, and not as shabby as a Polartec camping jacket.

And all made from leftovers!

Crayon dressing

Being stuck at home (read: crappy, cold rental) made me realise I needed another pair of pull on ponti pants and more long sleeved wool tops.

I didn't have any solid colour ponti and I'm not quite ready for bright, printed pull on pants - give me another month of lockdown and I may yet eat those words - so I set off to Fabric Deluxe who have a great selection of solid ponti fabrics (1.5m needed - note to self). Chocolate brown is my jam!

The elastic waist pants are Vogue 9284 which I'd sewn once before and wondered about their legitimacy. Well, I wear them all the time, and that was before workwear, athlesiurewear and loungewear all got thrown into the Covid blender and became the same thing!

I could certainly do with another pair.

The sizing on this pattern is odd. I measure between the 14 and 16, yet I've made the size 12, even taken them in a little, and you can see they're still not tight.

The side seams are sewn last and that allows for a bit of fit adjusting. The pattern has a 5/8" seam allowance, so if you'd underestimated your thigh size there'd be room to adjust. I ended up sewing my 5/8" seam, and then, instead of a second row of stitching 1/4" into the seam allowance, I did it 1/4" into the pants. I've also added 1&1/2" length at the lengthen/shorten line and I'm happy to say they're the perfect length (the navy ones are a tad short). I can wear these with flats or boots where they have a bit of a jodhphur vibe.

In a nice, heavy ponti I like the slight looseness and it gives them more of a nana trouser look and less like leggings that I'm meant to be running around in.

In rummaging around in my stash I found this heavy wool knit that came from my friend's mum's stash (many thanks to the late Barb xx)

There was just enough for a long sleeved tee, so I made a Liesl + Co Metro T, size medium, no mods. Perfect!

  

Because too much brown is never enough, and we weren't quite at lockdown and face mask stage when I took these photos I dragged a kid off to a nice brown bird mural and snapped some pictures.

Of course, most of the time I'm wearing this outfit it's under a coat (even indoors, curse this crappy rental), of which I have quite a few brown ones! (this one is Gerard Darel and I bought it in London in 2001)

I handed the coat to my son to wear while he photographed me and he looked so gangsta and cool in it, I wish I'd taken a photo of him! :)

The shirt is my Liesl + Co Recital shirt in fabric from Phillips Shirts. For a very comfy outfit it almost looks "put together" - at least by my standards.

City Stroll revisit

I made the City Stroll skirt for myself (twice) years ago but I under-grew it (is that the opposite of outgrew?)

Time for another!

I recalled that it could be made with a 1m cut of fabric, so I picked up just that much of this great mustard yellow denim from Fibresmith

It took a fair bit of puzzling to work out how to layout the pattern pieces and I was just about to go and hunt through my photos as I'd definitely snapped a pic of the final layout, when I figured it out anyway.

And then, what do you know, the very next day my phone did that "on this day" thing and showed me a photo from five years ago of the skirt pattern pieces laid out on a 1m cut of fabric!

My previous makes of this skirt had been a size 14 and a size 12. The 14 was always a bit big because I'd actually made it incorrectly and bound the raw edge rather than using the binding as a facing, but it worked back then. Here are the first ones and a link to an Oliver + S guest post showing what can, and can't, be done in a wrap skirt :)

The 12 was the one I'd kept and had under-grown. Thankfully I had traced off the size 10 when I was trying to find some way to make a skirt out of another remant piece of fabric (which turned out not to be possible!)

It's a really nicely shaped skirt with darts at the back, and it truly does behave better than any other wrap skirt I own.

It even works for cute kids: When 4 year old A wanted a "skirt that goes flat like yours" I made her one too by altering another pattern. I should revisit that idea!

I've added 1 inch of length to the size 10 here and the fit is perfect.

And it has pockets!

The pattern intends for you to close the wrap skirt invisibly. Buttons facing inwards are sewn to the outer wrap and buttonholes on the inner wrap.

As I had done on my first one I chose to use some of my snaps. These are a brass snap and looked perfect with fabric. Easy on, easy off I figured...

Only the snaps are so stiff i can't just pull on the fabric to undo them for fear of ripping the snaps right out of the (interfaced and reinforced) denim. So I can only get undressed with the aid of a butter knife! :)

Details:

Pattern: Liesl & Co City Stroll Skirt

Fabric: Denim from Fibresmith

Size: 10, with 1" extra length

warm woolly Bento

I've hit that depth of winter will-I-ever-be-warm-again feeling.

So, I sewed a warm, woolly jumper. I'd bought the fabric ages ago from Rathdowne Fabrics, probably intended it for one of the kids.... I was feeling colder than they looked so I had a play with seeing if there was enough for a jumper for me.

The fabric is a really thick, loop back wool knit. Kind of like a super thick french terry that smells of sheep when you iron it.

Along each selvedge was a section of thinner stripes with a raw, fringed black edge.

A cooler person than I would have used that selvedge with the raw edge somehow. But I just couldn't get my head around it...

I kept it simple and reached for a pattern that i already had traced off. The Liesl & Co Bento tee. This is the size L which is what I made when I first used the pattern and I knew that would be plenty loose enough for outerwear.

The only modification I made was to add the bottom hem band. Perhaps I made that a bit more gathered than it should have been, maybe I should have added a side split to the hem. Either way, I lost the square, boxy pullover idea that had been in my head all along.

But I gained a really warm, cosy jumper and I've hardly taken it off since I made it.

And I've since been back to Rathdowne and stocked up on more super thick wool knits. Easier than learning to knit!