Wooly waver jacket: everything can't be a winner.

Fun fact: did you know that nice wool coating fabric can cost $20-30/yard? At that rate, plus the time involved, it seems kinds of inefficient to make a wool coat. Not everyone sews to be frugal, but I do. 

So while I wanted to use up flannel scraps and fur leftovers for parts...i didn't have the important outer layer. I found myself with a fabulous pattern and no fabric to sew it. (see this year's resolution. i am a pattern glutton. we all have flaws ;)

Luckily, expensive places like cities also have special super bargain places like the East Bay Depot for Creative REuse. Isn't it great that creative is IN THE TITLE? like, don't just use it, make it GREAT, people. 

On a very productive I scored the bundle above for less than $10. excellent pressing tools, 2-3 yards of wool fabric, and that adorable bunny sateen - maybe a lining? Not wanting to lose my thunder, i took the barfy pink home and plunked it in a stew pot with some aqua dye. 

in process, with instagram filter. looks a dream, no?

it turned out ok. I'd prefer the color were more saturated, but it had gotten really cold out, I'd already dyed my fingers once, and i wanted a flippin coat. 

IT went together really easily. YAY! I interlined with leftover flannel bits from various dresses and PJs, used some paracute cord i bought for a long gone BF for the inner drawstring and, my favorite part, reused some gift fur from a dear friend's 2006 christmas gift for a luscious faux fur hood. 

see? it all fit together so nicely! This lining is some tahari stretch satin i thought i would use for lingerie about a year ago. Turns out I don't wear satin pjs and don't really have a satin lounge robe kind of life. You guys. it's good to be honest with yourself. 

my handstiching is getting better....inside the lovely perfect length everything fit together cuff.

anyway, the color's not great on me. 

the hood is 100 pounds.

all the photos with me in em are on my laptop at work (school).

i think i messed up the button placement.

all those layers in the middle make the cinching kinda lumpy.

image stolen from student artwork @ my school. i love it.

something i'm doing makes all of my lower right plackets wonky.

everything can't be a winner. It's the process sometimes. Learning.

tell me about your near misses?

Last years bikinis and this years improvements

These look decent enough on my dummy, but I have a lot more need to fight gravity than she does. On me both tops were huge fails. 

Soma bikini view 2: b cup at best, but I bet it's better for even smaller busts.

lil star button I sewed at the Kauai airport ❤️

I loove the super low back on this one. 

I tried it on to see what the deal was and handily, there's a horizontal seam right across the bust. I can do this! 

Here's how I FBA'd it- super fun to feel like an engineer with curving lines. 

A little added to the bottom of the upper cup...

A whole lot added to the top of the lower cup (probably a smudge too much, but I'll tone it down in the seam allowance)...

And I narrowed the center triangle so it can act more like a stabilizing bra bridge.

(I had to give dummy some boobs for this demo)

Kept the low back, added volume.

It's fabulous! Now to finish it. 

do I finish with this polka dot fabric, so it matches the bottoms I made last summer? Or start fresh with THIS FABRIC??

Seems like an easy choice , I guess 😏.

And Just so I don't make this mistake again, 

Here's the Soma bikini view A. The elastic throughout is supposed to be FOE- should have been a clue this is not a heavy lifter. 😮

Others have written about issues at the top of the triangles- I just did a lazy pleat to deal with the excess fabric.

I tripled the elastic down here hoping for stability- to no avail. 

Can't quite theorize how to FBA this guy, so I'm putting it aside. I harvested the notions though! 

Off to a week of daily swims starting tomorrow! Wish me sewing luck tonight.

Xox bex