Thursday 4 December 2008

3

More bird coats?!

Bet you're scratching your head and thinking, "What's with her and all this bird stuff?" I admit, birds are all over this blog, namely in the coats I've been making in the last couple of weeks. These thematic obsessions pop up in my stash without me noticing. One day when I'm staring at the tower of fabric, I see that there's heaps of bird stuff. Go figure, I don't even like birds very much.

This one is single breasted and has seagull-type silhouettes in black with bluey accents on a white background, some of the beaks are red. The reverse is blue and white polkadots, and there is also a 'goretex fleece' layer in the middle. Again, machine could not cope so sleeve edges and back hem are slip-stitched. Although machine grudgingly let me topstitch the orange coat, it would not let me topstitch this one. I do actually like the 'cleaner' lines without topstitching though. Both sides have red polka dot buttons.

On the subject of the goretex fleece interlining, someone left a comment on my orange / nightmare coat post saying 'FYI, there is no such thing as Goretex fleece' and then disappeared into cyberspace again. I have to admit, I was a bit flummoxed by that comment and its abrupt tone. Plus I am selling these coats and felt unsure whether I could say it had a Goretex Fleece lining, or just mysterious, definitely non-Goretex fleece interlining. Anyway, I put it to the fount of knowledge that is Craftster, and I've been assured that it does exist. Phew...

The second coat is the same lime green velveteen as the Amazing Technicolour Elf Coat. Like the orange / nightmare bird coat, this one is double breasted, but with four buttons instead of six. No inner fleece layer for this one (I couldn't bear it) and it has a hood instead of a peter pan collar.
I modified the elf hood to more of a pixie hood, it's slightly more fitted so it's not as dangerous!
The reverse side is Alexander Henry's Aviary fabric. Both sides have pink and white polkadot buttons.

I was struggling with the layers shifting all about so I had to unpick and redo some bits... figured out that my machine didn't like when the velveteen was down on the feed. So it took a lot longer than it should have! The pics came out badly, the the colours are a lot more muted than in real life.
Here is an updated pic of the spotty side of the orange / nightmare coat. Remember I was agonising over what colour to use as I 'did not want orange'? Look... orange.

I've been staying up so late working on these coats, last night when I crouched down to spread my buttons out, I fell over.

3 comments:

  1. I am so in love with the green bird coat with elf hoodie. Will this be on Etsy?

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  2. Thanks Courtney, I'm glad you like it! I finally got around to listing it tonight...

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  3. I love your coats and I read somewhere that bird print is 'in' this season so you were ahead of the game :)
    I must admit, I am a bit confused by gore-tex fleece. I used to work in the outdoor sports industry and know a fair bit about gore-tex. It is a membrane which is sandwiched between other fabric though so I guess fleece would work...I have just googled it because now I am really curious and there was no mention of it as a stand alone material but here's the bit on goretex on wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore-tex
    Thats bedtime reading for you ;)

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