tiny happy

Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on making a winter coat. I've been wanting to try out a design by Papercut Patterns for a while. They're based in Nelson, my hometown! And I think their designs are fab. Anyway, I bought their Sapporo Coat pattern and made it up from some black cashmere woollen twill fabric that has been tucked away in a box under my bed for far too long. 

It's a really clever design, but I wasn't so clever when sewing it. The first version I made looked ok hanging up but the fit wasn't quite right when I put it on (here's a photo of it on Insta) and that was I think partly to do with drinking wine while sewing, and partly because I didn't take enough time and care when cutting the pieces out in the first place.

I'm always tempted to rush when sewing clothes, which is not a good habit. Do you do this too? I think because my sewing stuff takes over my workdesk while I'm making something, I feel like I need to get it done quickly before stacks of books and papers, scissors and pins completely overtake the room. And also because when compared to knitting, sewing is quite fast. But I am trying to learn that slow is good. No matter how many things I sew, I'm still very likely to make mistakes at every turn.

Anyway, I didn't want to waste the beautiful wool fabric I'd used for this coat so I carefully deconstructed it and started again, this time with a dusky pink rayon fabric for the lining. I'm really happy with the second version and I'm sure I'll wear it lots. It's very drapey and warm. I especially like the big pockets.

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I've been doing a bit of embroidery lately – in the last photo above you can see an all-over blossom pattern on a dark grey linen.

I'm also preparing for my classes at the upcoming Soul Craft Festival in Melbourne, and a shipment of my embroidered haberdashery pouches arrived at Loop in London last week – you can see some of them in the photo above. Susan from Loop sent me the linen to make project bags for her shop and these pouches used up the leftover strips – aren't the colours beautiful? 

Here's a song I think is quite beautiful: C'etait un loup by Palatine.
Have a lovely week!

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