Finally, the Coat

So I’ve kept promising pictures, and finally here they are.  Once again, no model.  I’m kicking myself because I found a good quality tripod on one of those flyers people put up but I LOST the number – and it was the last piece of paper. Blech. The search continues.

My bound buttonholes

I wanted to line it in hot pink so that when the pocket was open, it would have a pop of color

I hemmed the sleeve lining and coat lining by hand

And the lining. I love satin, but does the camera have to pick up every single wrinkle?

So there she is.  I learned so much while working on this coat and I’m very proud of it. The only problem I have is that it snags on everything (you can see some of the threads on the left side of the coat in the first pic. I have to figure out a way to weave them back in.) However, that’s a pretty small complaint for a coat that I absolutely love wearing – and might I add, I look great in it too!

It Got So Cold!

Practically overnight, the weather went from pleasantly cool to just plain cold. And as always I was unprepared.  Sure I have my nice new coat, but I had nothing to cover my head. Enter Ravelry. (If you knit or crochet, do yourself a favor and head over there to sign up and get access to some of the most innovative and beautiful designs ever.)

Anyhow, Ravelry has this fantastic search function that  allows you to find projects by how much yardage you have on hand. How genius is that?  Since my coat is grey, I wanted a black hat and found one skein of Top of the Lamb wool worsted yarn in my stash.According to the label, it’s 190 yards so after doing my search and looking through all the eligible patterns, I decided on the Boho beret. I started it last night while watching television and waiting for one of my projects to render (did I ever mention that I’m a film editor? ) and in just a few hours – including ribbing which always goes super slow for me – I made this: It’s really hard to photograph black items so, but if you look really closely, you can see the eyelet pattern.  I hope it’ll be more visible once I finish the rest of the stockinette.
The rest is pretty much all stockinette in the round so I should be finished by this evening. Yay for quick knits!

Throwback Handbag

This probably won’t be a theme as I don’t have much “throwback” stuff, but I wanted to share one of my favorite creations: a snakeskin box bag.  I can’t even remember how many hours I spent on it, but I don’t regret a second.

It’s actually grey, but for some reason it’s photographing brownish.  Oh well.

 

 

This is the back. Then handle is pure sterling silver. A friend of mine who’s a jeweler bent it into the shape (Thanks Motti wherever you are!)

On the inside I made two lipstick holders and a small pocket at the front for business cards.

 

 

And a mirror at the top for discreet touch-ups.

 

 

 

And tiny feet so that the delicate snakeskin would be protected from spills, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately she’s never made it out of the house. Who knew snakeskin would be so hard to wear? I love her all the same though and she still makes me smile when I see her on my purse shelf.

Maybe I’ll wear her with my FINISHED coat!  Yes, it’s finally done and I’ve already worn it out to a wedding. I’ll post pics as soon as I take them, but that’s no small feat as I’ve discovered that the best light is in my bedroom and to take pics in there, I have to move my bed – not cute. But for you, I’ll make the sacrifice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Precious

I want to introduce you to my new precious. I’ve wanted this book for well over a year, but I was waiting for it to get to a reasonable price. (The word “reasonable” is relative when it comes to out-of-print books though.)

I can’t even remember the first time I heard about it, but I think it was when Gertie mentioned how helpful it was to her. That’s when I knew I had to have a copy. I’m fascinated by garment construction and there are few things I love more than well-fitting clothes so I moseyed over to Amazon to buy a copy and was promptly stopped in my tracks by the prices.  That’s when it became my mission to find a cheaper copy. Now of course I could’ve bought the book on CD from Susan Khalje’s site for $39+ S&H, but I wanted, no I NEEDED, to have the book in my hands. I couldn’t find a copy locally for love or money until about a month ago when there it was on Amazon for $50 and I almost fainted from joy.

Now I haven’s spent that much money on a book since grad school, but I just had to have it. After a few days of going back and forth, I finally hit the “Checkout” button. The book was published in 1997, so there are some, ahem, interesting gowns such as this:

BUT, there’s so much useful information in this book and great diagrams like this:

that it’s worth every penny!  FYI, this book is mostly about specialty construction techniques for bridal and evening wear, but the techniques can be adapted to everyday sewing if you want to take your garments to the next level. As books go, this one is right up there with my copy of Claire Shaeffer’s Couture Techniques which I refer to regularly so I’m really happy I bought it.