Not My Wedding Cape: Peppermint Winter Wool Cape

A couple of weeks ago Tim and I got hitched and it was perfect!

I had considered making my wedding dress and even bought a few patterns but ended up falling hard over a dress I tried on when inspiration shopping. I absolutely loved my dress. And I'm really glad I bought a dress as Tim and I had a short engagement and trying to decide on a style, find the right fabrics, muslin and sew a dress in that time frame would have been an added stress that I didn't need.

But, I wasn't too sure what to wear over my dress in case of cool weather. I had a second-hand jacket that would do the job, but I couldn't get the idea of a blue cropped cape out of my mind. I searched the internet for inspiration and loved the idea of somehting like this, but wasn't totally convinced it would go with my dress. I decided to just give it a go and cut out the free Peppermint Sewing School Winter Wool Cape pattern. I cut a size small in some beautiful blue wool blend and blush silk fabric from Tessuti.

I made the pattern up as instructed with the following changes: I understitched the silk edge to wool seam allowances to help it stay inside the cape a little better. If I made the cape again I'd cut the silk a couple of mm's smaller than the main fabric to help with this also. I attached the neckband the opposite way around to the instructions so that the hand sewing would be on the inside. I used a hook and eye rather than a button and loops.

I love that this pattern has shoulder seams and arm space, rather than being just a semi-circle. You can still use your arms! I love the cropped length and the style. But, it wasn't right for the wedding. My dress was fitted up top and having a boxy cape took away from the shape of my dress. Also, the blue and white reminded me of an old fashioned nurse's outfit. My sister took some photos of the cape over my wedding dress for me a few days before the wedding. Below is the ridiculous photo that sealed the deal: the cape was not quite right.

But it is a lovely little cape. So that leads to question, where and how do you wear a little bright blue cape?

A Belated Tessuti Sydney Jacket

A post that's been half written since last winter:
I love the Tessuti aesthetic. The designs are modern, minimalist and often offer comfort through oversized, boxy or flowy styles. There are a few bloggers on my feed who make just about all Tessuti patterns and they look stunning wearing them. I'm not so sure about these boxy, flowy, often lengthened garments on my body. I generally admire these patterns on others and avoid them for myself.

This was true of the Sydney Jacket initially. And then these amazing coats kept popping up all over my blog feed. I went to a Frocktails fabric shopping get-together last year and I saw four different ladies in four equally gorgeous coats in one morning! About an hour in to the day I was convinced I'd give it a go.

I bought my fabric (wool/poly blend) from The Fabric Store and cut a size S. Due to fabric wanting to fray a little I excluded the exposed pockets and cut the front piece along the selvage. I didn't both about pattern matching because the pattern is a little origami like at first and I didn't want to stuff around figuring out the perfect match only to get it wrong. Especially as I wasn't convinced I'd even wear the coat.

The sewing was pretty darn quick. I found it helpful to mark in chalk the overlapped seam lines on the fabric when lining up pattern pieces. I really like the look of the exposed seam lines but they can get a little messy if you're not careful. On the edges of the coat I sew a line of stitching parallel to the raw edges and then purposeless frayed the edges a little.

These photos are from last winter, wearing the coat over Jeans. But since, I've been more likley to wear it over another drapey long sleeve cardigan with a fitted skirt. I wouldn't say I feel totally myself in it and I think I look a bit like I'm just wearing a blanket, but it's very warm and comfortable. I've been considering making another version but can't decide between a colourful tartan I've been dyeing to cut into and a basic black or tan.  I wonder also if a slightly thicker fabric would give it more structure and remove some of the blanket look?