Of course, when my sewing time is reduced to dream-time, I am all the more easily seduced by the lure of a pattern sale. Actually I had been looking at the Vogue pattern site since my magazine came on the weekend, and have been adding things in and out of the cart depending on the time of day, my mood, and probably the amount of cloud cover in the sky.
So of course the urge to click “buy” when the sale was announced did not go unheeded.
I will start with the coats.
When I first looked through the Vogue site, I noted the new Sandra Betzina coat but thought that it was just not going to work for me. The one piece body and sleeves, with my small upper chest but wider shoulders and bust just looked like a headache starting to happen, the photo just looked too much like a bathrobe..
But then, when I was reading the magazine there was an article by Sandra Betzina about making this coat out of Patent Leather. That really caught my eye.
Now I love patent leather, and this coat looks fabulous. I should have known. Whenever I have gone to one of Sandra’s sewing weeks I fall in love with the clothes she has made from her patterns, even patterns that I initially dismissed from looking at the pattern envelope or the way they were presented in the Vogue magazine.
If I were in San Francisco this week, as I had hoped to be before further issues arose with DH’s health, I would probably be looking at the original of this coat, and adding this pattern to my stack.
But I already have a red patent leather coat. It is Valentino and fit me about 20 pounds ago. If anything should encourage me to lose those 20 pounds it should be that coat.
And although I like the tucks at the waist, I have a Marfy pattern somewhere that has tucks, but is otherwise a much more tailored coat.
I did not buy this pattern. But I still like that coat. The possibility always exists that someone will sew it and post some fabulous version on the web and I will have to have it.
But for now, I have at least managed a teeny tine modicum of restraint.
So, what coat patterns did I buy?
I don’t actually object to cut-on sleeves, and this Issey Miyake pattern is just lovely. I see they call it a jacket. I call it a coat, but it is probably more of a lightweight coat or duster than a seriously heavy duty winter coat. Because of the princess seams and the gussets this will be much easier to fit and probably a lot of fun to sew as well
I would love the long version of this coat in a nice wool crepe. The short version would be nice in lightweight double knit and I also think I can also seeing it transitioning away in a nice linen crepe I have hidden somewhere in the stash.
Although I think the Koos van den Akker coat made with the slashed fleece is very interesting, I am not at all sure that I would be making this coat as it is shown. Well I might if I found just the absolutely perfect piece of fleece.
But I am actually attracted to the coat for the basic shape. When I get back on track with my coat sew along, I am planning on making a coat with a long wrap or shawl collar, much like the one in this pattern. I was not planning on raglan sleeves, but I think the basic shape of this coat is a classic, and one I am sure to use at some time or another. I also wondered if the fact that the pattern was designed for fleece might be useful for my fused wool yarn fabric. I am really not yet certain about the characteristics of this fabric or if it will prove to be difficult to ease.
So this coat went in my basket and is on its way to me now. I also have a kind of a muted mulberry/mauve fake fur with a suede like backing which might work for this coat. Or would that be just too much purple fur? Perhaps I had better think about that a little further.
Then I succumbed to these two patterns; obviously they are variations on a theme.
I chose the vogue pattern for more than the coat. I like the little top and skirt as well, but primarily I am attracted the the coat. It has problems, namely that I would look like a shapeless big bubble in it. I absolutely do not like the view with the collar buttoned up around the neck. I think it looks terrible around the shoulders and upper chest. But I love the view of the collar with the funnel neckline folded down. I know it is not practical. The cold winter wind would blow right down the front of that coat. But it does provide an opportunity for wearing a fabulous shawl or scarf, or it can be made in a lighter weight fabric for those fall days when you need a bit of a light coat but don’t need to be out battling sub-zero winds. This pattern actually calls for a lighter fabric and anything too stiff would defeat that nice shape of the folded back collar.
The McCalls pattern is somewhat similar, and looks better through the shoulders and collar than the Vogue. If I wanted a buttoned up collar, this is the one I would go for. It doesn’t have that “my breasts have become an extension of my chin” look that the Vogue coat seems to promote. Because the collar is a separate piece, it gives you more opportunity to fit the coat to the body. I also like the idea that there are front seams in this coat, with inseam pockets. This gives far more fitting options.
I could probably just take the Vogue pattern and add the front seams. But with the sale price it seems so much more interesting and yes, fun, to compare the patterns and play with them.
