Autumn is my favorite time of year, and in particular, I
love all of the clothes that go with it that we miss so much all summer.
This project combined two of my favorites, sweaters &
outerwear, into a pretty and practical cape coat.
I used pattern Kwik Sew 4031, but modified it a bit by removing some of the overlap in the front because I didn’t have quite enough fabric to make it as shown. I worried quite a bit about this, but as you can see it ended up being a non-issue.
The fabric is a luxurious Missoni sweater knit from Michael Levine, Inc. in
Los Angeles. This is not the recommended fabric type-- the pattern calls for a
woven or substantial knit- this is a bit stretchy-- but it worked just
fine.
Since the fabric is so lovely, I decided to splurge on the trim and use leather tape from MJ Trimming- the application required a great deal of care (there is no going back with leather!) but it came out nicely. The leather tape is quite nice as well- very soft and flexible, and the seams are glued rather than sewn, making them nearly invisible.
Another change I made to the pattern was to bind the shoulder seams and tape the neck seams, both to keep them from stretching out of shape and to make the whole thing as pretty on the inside as it is on the outside.
The closure is very clever- it is attached by screws. I like this concept because I can change it
if I want, but the screws are really a bit long to be practical; I had to pad
them on the back to make the closure lay against the fabric on the front. In the future (once I have lived with it for
a while) I may attach the closure permanently to the coat with rivets and caps-
we’ll see.
Now if only the temperatures would dip below 70!
