Yesterday evening I went for a small walk around the neighborhood. The weather has been so beautiful, yet so unseasonably cool (most un-August-like), that I wanted to get outside a little. I was a little lost in my thoughts, when I rounded a corner, and saw on the ground the most picturesque little sprig of oak leaves with acorns. I was startled – even if the weather is acting much more like late September or early October, I still wasn’t thinking of falling acorns. But then, I usually don’t think of those things until November, when I get the sudden urge to make felted wool acorns for Christmas presnts/decorations, and the only ones I can find are kinda sad and dirty and squashed looking.
I thought it might be a fluke, but when I looked around on the ground, I saw lots more, all green and shiny and still clean. So I gathered up a couple handfuls of the prettiest ones, and headed on. Just a little further down the block, I saw all these lovely, pristine pine cones strewn about. So I gathered some of those too. They were starting to overflow my arms, and it looked so much like something from a design magazine or one of those really pretty blogs that I had to stop and take a picture. Or two.
Then, just past the large pine cones was another tree, this one dispensing ridiculously cute tiny pine cones, all small and perfect. So I gathered up a bunch of those too. The whole bunch was starting to get a little unwieldy at that point, so I waited until I got home, and could dump everything in a basket before I took more pictures.
It’s barely halfway through August, and already I’m all set for Fall.
Well, almost set. You see, I’ve decided to take a small break from the work wardrobe sewing, and make myself a new coat. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. My regular winter coat is a serviceable black pea coat that I got on super sale a few years back. It’s starting to show its age a little, but is still just fine. However, I keep dreaming about the perfect vintage style, princess-lines wool coat – something sortof like this:
I have a few patterns that would probably work, but the problem is the fabric. Coating fabric is expensive. Even on super sale, it usually runs about $10/yard, and these kind of coats take at least seven or eight yards. So far I haven’t been able to bring myself to take that plunge, especially since I’m not sure if my sewing skills are up to the more complicated tailoring techniques making it up would require. But then, I saw this:
I had never thought of making a cocoon style coat before, but something about the silhouette whispered that this could be so fabulously cozy. And then, the pattern actually comes in my size, so I wouldn’t have to worry about grading it up or fussing over the fit. Plus, the simpler unlined version only requires 4 1/2 yards of fleece, which is much easier to come by than 7 or 8 yards of good wool coating. What sealed the deal, however, was when I discovered that one of my favorite online fabric shops had some fairly decent fleece in a dark gray on sale for $5/yard (I’d link to it, but it looks like it’s all gone now). So we’re going to give this a try. I tell myself that if it doesn’t turn out, then at least I’ll have an excessively chic fleece housecoat to wear around the house this winter.
In the meantime, if you’d like to participate in my 1000th Blog Post Name That Car contest, in which the lucky winner gets to name my new car, don’t forget to post a comment on my last post. You don’t have to include your name suggestion in the comment, any comment will do. If Aunt Mary can do it, you can too!