Last spring, I was in a charity shop and I saw a coat for 2euro, I was amazed as the fabric quality was great, but the cut of the fabric was right from the 1980s and had humungous shoulders….. anyway I got it, and over the next few weeks bought some more coats from the bargain rail and it pretty much started me thinking on about – remaking/refashioning clothes, all the limitations of fast fashion, and the shocking amount of what ends up in charity shops – and my blog started from the coats really
This is the second of the 6 coats to get remade. The first was the jacket from this pattern which I was very pleased with, so I thought the coat could be a good follow-up. Making the coat was not as straightforward as the jacket, and I had to compromise on a few things (addition of cuff, and coat length), and the fabric quality was not as luscious as the last coat, and has also stitch marks left by patch pockets. However, I did get to wear it, and like it (camel is not a colour I wear, and I am now converting – it looked great with jeans and black sweater)
There are a 2 issues, the first is the previous patch pockets left some marks which I hope will ease in time, and I will re-steam the coat in a few weeks and they may lessen. The second issue is I notice the fabric absorbed some water from being splashed when I wore it out, and the water soaked immediately, and dried within 20 minutes. For the 20 minutes – the splash marks looked like grease marks and the coat looked grubby (and I didn’t feel quite so classy in my new coat). I don’t know if the coat had some detergent used on it at some time to make it so absorbent, or if camel wool does this (which I doubt) – so I am now considering spraying some scotch-guard and seeing if this will help!