Out-of-Season Sewing

As far as I'm concerned, the only downside to sewing out of season is pictures. 

 I, for one, am perfectly fine catch-stitching warm layers while sitting in sweet, air-conditioned loveliness.  I'm fine steaming wool hems safe in my basement while tornado sirens whine outside.  I'm even fine ditching sewing projects to go swim or ride bikes, or road-trip for a couple weeks, because Lord knows, I'm not in a rush to finish.

But venturing outside in the hot, muggy, Missouri July in long layers is not something I'd rush to volunteer for.

Even the camera fogged up after two pictures outside.  True story.

Pattern: Butterick 6169

Fabric:  Theory High Risk Red wool coating,  acrylic lining from inherited stash

Notions: Atom red 18" separating zipper, medium weight weft interfacing, 1/4" shoulder pads and sleeve heads, each trimmed to thin a little more.

This was not my first rodeo with this pattern; the first version was in chambray, which I loved in theory, but in reality just felt a little limp.  So when I saw this sweet, soft wool online, I knew they would work well together.  

Again, I used the sewalong to add sleeve heads and bag the lining.

And you know, not being in a hurry, I went full force.  I block fused all the pieces, and when the shell was complete, catch-stitched all the seam allowances to the interfacing. That's a lot of seams.  

The lining is this funky stuff I inherited from my grandmother's stash.  I'd originally passed it up when we first started going through everything, but my mom spotted it and set it aside. It's a little creepy/charming, but it grows on you.   There were about 4 yards of it, and while originally I'd planned to use it with some green wool I have, I kind of like it here.  I don't know where it came from, but it's not without its faults--there were a couple misprints where the red wasn't aligned right, and double printed on one stripe and completely missed further down. Perhaps it was a factory second?  

Can you see the line of double printing?  Both misprints are in the sleeves.

When Kansas City had a garment district, you could go down to the factories and buy overstock yardage, remnants and trims, and I know that was something she liked to do.  This has kind of a nubbly texture, but is light-weight, like rayon, and holds a press nicely. I did do a burn test just for fun, and it melted, making a hard, black, irregular bead.  Some burn charts further classify acrylics, but I think we can just agree it's synthetic and call it a day, right?

In any case, I'm saving this coat for another day.  My youngest is looking forward to sweatpants and hot cocoa, and we'll just park this over there for awhile.  Maybe I'll work on a scarf to go with it.