duvet in disguise

Or is it a technicolour dreamcoat in disguise? Either way I’m pretty sure I want one. H was in need of a new winter coat. Her old one, which I made over two years ago (and before I started blogging) is now too small and showing some serious signs of wear. The trouble being, that she loved her old coat so much, she wanted the new one to be just the same. Same colour, same style, just bigger. Whilst I’m aware this should make me happy – it was a fairly simple design, and as I’ve made it before it should be easy to make again the creative demon inside me was rolling it’s eyes at such a dull project. Luckily, the Kid’s Clothes Week inspiration posts about this season’s theme of ‘disguise’ did their job and gave me an idea that gave me a creative challenge, whilst giving H the coat she really wanted.

With the idea of a bright, multicolour coat in disguise as something a lot more conservative, I set to work using up a bag of scraps to create a large enough piece of patchwork to form the lining. It’s not the neatest patchwork in the world as I was keen not to invest too much time in something that won’t really be seen, but I did make a conscious effort to make sure the patches didn’t look too regular. As some of the patches were from outgrown/wornout clothes some of the patches come with their own hidden pockets.

Once there was enough I roughly quilted the patchwork onto a pre-quilted polyester lining fabric to make sure the coat was extra cosy. From then on I constructed the coat normally using the patchwork quilt as lining fabric and a lovely flecked navy wool from Simply Fabrics for the main fabric. Simply Fabrics didn’t have much faux fur in stock so I took a bus trip to Fabrics Galore in Clapham Junction and picked up a small piece of super soft fur.

I used adapted the same pattern I used last time – McCall’s 6641 – an easy, lined coat pattern with hood and side pockets. It turned out to have been a good idea to use a simple pattern as trying to sew through 2 layers of thick faux fur, two of quilt, 4 or thick wool and another of interfacing proved challenge enough.