the first cab progresses

The Particloured Cotehardie of Unfinishedness had an outing on the weekend. This was the other half of the great sewing expotition to the house of Gudrun.

So what did I manage to do?
*Attach sleeves to outer and inner.
*Gores attached to front and one side of outer. Left other gores at home, so they will go in tonight.
*Pinned gores to lining too. Brought wrong thread on expotition, so I did not sew these (I have tons of it, and had no intention of using up someones else's thread just for the hell of it).

Am happy with this set of events. I now will have to sit with the iron and flatten a lot of seams prior to putting this thing together, or it will never sit properly.

The Viking Coat

This was a piece made quite some time ago, with the help of the wonderful Gudrun. In the course of an evening, we patterned, cut out and mostly sewed up a great coat in a lovely, mushroomy brown. This was the first attempt at said coat for both of us, aside from some vague attempts. It has assymetric front panels, so that they should overlap across the chest. We (well, the person who is not me) actually put the two front pieces on the wrong sides, so it does not quite overlap as much as it should, and it has more side fullness. Also, I am quite a different build to Gudrun, chestwise, and we did not change the pattern proportions to accomodate that. All in all, it worked pretty darn well for a first attempt. Except.....

For the sleeves... which were "a little" large. It was vaguely farcical as the coat was/is mostly snug, with the front pieces overlapping about half way down my torso, shoulders perfect, then these great big floppy sleeves.

So, on saturday, when I went to Gudrun's for more sewing goodness, I took the guilty coat. Five minutes of "stand and be pinned", some vicious scissor action, and we were done. Two quick machine seams required. Hey presto, sleeves now look much more sane. I just have to redo the handsewing down of the seam allowances, and coat will be wearable. *Actually, it is wearable right now, I am just anal about seam allowances being finished off, and it is too hot in sydney atm, giving me some grace period to do the hand finishing.*

Hooray. Now, where to wear it? Gudrun, we need to have a viking day in Scandanavia!

Edit: Also managed to make the (embarassing) underdress of pinkness into one of a sensible beige. Hooray for overdying pink with a touch of green. I am very happy with this, as it is my most comfortable underdress for summer, but one is a little self-concious at coronations when one is pink...