Two Long Coats

During the weeks around last Christmas when the weather was very cold I sewed two long coats.

Me and Molly

Brocade  coat

I used the Buttrick  B5295 pattern for both coats. The coat is a simple design.  The front and back sections are  one piece each with darts giving it shape. The style of the coat has quite wide shoulders and the sleeve heads have little pleats which make the shoulders even wider.  This is a problem I am often having with coat patterns.  Other than decreasing shoulder width and increasing the length a little I stuck to the pattern.  Except that I have no pockets, which in hindsight would have been useful but I think the coat looks better without pockets.

The blue coat is made from a heavy weight wool, the outer surface of which has a lovely velvety texture.  Blue, in all its many shades and tones, is probably my favourite colour to wear and I am wearing this coat very often. 

The coat has a notched collar and three buttons which I have covered with the same wool fabric.

I sewed a little back tab onto the back to nip the coat in a bit more at the lower back.  Because the wool is quite a heavy weight I had difficulty pressing the darts to become really flat, like a factory made coat would be.  I suppose they have special irons/pressing machines, and I do not.  Neverthless, I don't think it really matters.

Something I really like to do is sew beads or other adornments onto clothes that I have made. 

collar decorated with beads

cuff decorated with beads

Brocade coat

This is another coat I made from the same pattern, a coat for a more special occasion.  A friend of mine has a beautiful coat made from a type of brocade fabric with fur trim around the collar and sleeves.  I looked in ebay for a coat like this but couldn't find one so I decided to make one myself.
I wasn't sure where I would get a similar fabric.  I had an idea of using curtain fabric and eventually found this fabric in the apholstrey section of my local fabric shop. It is not very heavy or warm so I put a layer of cotton wading between the outer fabric and lining fabric.
The "fur" around the collar I removed from a coat I bought a few years ago and it fits perfectly!  So that saved me a bit of money because "fur" is quite expensive to buy.

coat lining

Button detail

Cardigan with cable and matching Mittens

Today is February the 1st.
In Ireland today it  is St. Brigid's day -  the pagan feast of Imbolg, the festival of Spring. Making a St. Brigid’s cross is for some people a traditional ritual. They are hung by the door and in the rafters to protect the house from fire and evil. I didn't make this little cross, that is a project for next year.
                                                                                         

Today I have chosen to post up photos of a cardigan I knitted a few months ago.  The design is my own and the yarn is sirdar eco dk wool, in a medium beige and grey. I wanted to create a cardigan that was pleasant and comfortable to wear in neutral, natural colours yet with  something special - a continuous cable running in one unbroken strip around the waist. As far as I know aran style cables were first knit in Ireland by women for their fishermen.  I have great admiration for anyone who knits a whole aran style jumper of cables.  For me one cable is quite enough.

 

This wool is very warm while still being a dk weight and it kept me warm on many cold days this Winter.  So far no bobbles have formed and the cardigan hasn't lost it shape.  It wasn't particularly expensive either.

I first knitted the cable.  Then I picked up stitches along one side and knitted up towards the shoulder  and then picked up stitches at the other side of the cable and knitted down.  This means that the sides of the cardigan are seam-free and the cable is unbroken.  It also meant that I had quite a lot of stitches on one single row since I was knitting front and back in one go.

seam free sides

close up of cable at waist

close up of cuff

As usual I had some wool left over - one ball of beige and another of grey

mittens

While waiting for the wool for my next project (navy alpaca dk wool) to arrive I busied myself making mittens from this left over yarn.  I didn't have enough wool of each colour to knit both mittens.  My brother had the idea to make each hand a different colour but with the thumb the same colour as the other hand, which I think works well.  The cuffs are ribbed with little bobbles around the edge.
I began by using a mitten pattern from one of the sublime angora books, but as often happens I found the dimensions were a bit strange, so I altered the pattern a bit.