Coleen Made a Jacket!

Coleen just finished a blue corduroy jacket- perfect for fall! Yes, it was cut out and started last September and then has just been slowly progressing, but she is finally finished and I have a feeling it will see lots of wear this spring. Unfortunately, with having it on the table for so long -she has sprouted up and is now two sizes bigger - thankfully, I think we made it a little on the big side so I think it will work through spring. I just am not sure it will make it all of the way to next fall...

Details:

The pattern is from the Spring 2006 issue of Ottobre Design. Sizing 128-170 cm. She made a size 134. She had originally intended to make this from some light blue corduroy, but then we decided that it was too lightweight and we should find another piece of fabric... well, it was my stash to the rescue. I had this piece of dark blue corduroy that was a better weight for a jacket just languishing in the back of my cupboard and there was just enough of it! And when I say just enough - I mean that a couple of the pieces have selvedge seam allowances and the pocket flap facings are cut in the wrong direction!

I think the jacket went together smoothly for the most part. I would help her with pinning (and in fact the one big error was mine - I pinned one of the sleeves in so that the top of the sleeve was lined up with the front princess seam instead of the shoulder seam - oops! Easily resewable and since it was my mistake - I even ripped the seams out for her.) She had a little trouble keeping the top stitching straight, which I think had to do with the corduroy tending to want to shift in the machine.

We really liked all of the details on this jacket and Coleen found some great buttons- again in my stash- silver with some Celtic knotwork stamped into them.

She was thinking on moving onto an easier project, like pajamas next, but I just happened to have a pair of pants cut out for her and so she has already started on those.

They're Done!

I was able to finish up the curtains last weekend and we managed to get them all hung by Saturday night. What a difference it is to have nice curtains up. It makes it feel so much more like our house and less like an apartment we're renting.

The fabric for all of the curtains came from fabric.com.

Our bedroom

Coleen's bedroom. She has sheets with blue & green polka dots too!
The office. These are my favorite. I loved the fabric!



All of the curtains are lined with black out fabric. All hems were hand-stitched which gives a nice clean finish (albeit a slow one) to the outside of the curtains.

Next on the list: pants for me. And then we will start re-outfitting Coleen for spring. I realized yesterday when I took her measurements that she has shot up not one, but two sizes... no wonder all of her clothes seem small.

What I'm working on

Curtains!!!

For both bedrooms and the office... yes, all at the same time.

They are all simple tab tops and just the height of the windows (about 3.5 feet).

I think it might have felt like I was getting them done faster if I had done one set at a time... but now I am on the home stretch- just have to hand sew the linings to the curtains on the side edges. 4 curtains down... 6 to go.

Here I am at work on the curtains for Coleen's room