Chimchilla resurrected

I have no idea where March went, and here it is well beyond the middle of April, and despite my plans and goals, life seems to have its own ideas.  Nevertheless…

Though it seems that everyone is busily sewing up garments for the warm weather that is promised… bear with me while I stick with winter wear.  We did still have snow falling one week ago, and this coat most certainly was in use.

Chimchilla (and no, that is not a misspelling!  What else do you call imitation chinchilla?) was purchased years and years ago at the Creative Festival in Toronto.   It almost didn’t get purchased.  I drooled over it pretty well first thing when I got there.  A rather expensive purchase for first thing in the day without first having a look around to see what else there was to drool over.  So later in the day, still on budget, and being absolutely sure that nothing else was as necessary as that imitation fur, which is the softest most wonderful thing I had ever seen, I was back at the same stall, only to find that there was no more chimchilla.  However, the very kind gentleman had apparently taken a gamble that I would be back and had put the remainder of the roll under the table just for me!  How could I possibly not buy whatever was left on the roll?   And so, in fairly short order I made a coat.  (Not all fabrics around here lie around for decades.)  Chimchilla as lining.  (Sorry, I forgot to mention, the pattern is Vogue 7806 

– I’m not even going to check – it is very definitely OOP, but it is the absolute easiest coat that I have ever sewn.  And it is such a loose fit that it couldn’t possibly need alterations for fit.)  Unfortunately, I used a fairly thin wool that I had in stash for the outer layer.  After quite a few years of wear and tear, and a number of trips to the cleaner’s, the coat became rather sad looking.  The fault was with the wool, not the chimchilla.  And so the coat hung in the closet for some years while I tried to sort out what to do.

I looked for replacement wool.  Somehow, spending a fair bit on refurbishing an old coat just didn’t sit right with me.  Well, that, and I was really dragging my feet about it, because ripping apart and remaking just isn’t my favourite thing to do.  In January I finally took the plunge.  I ripped apart the two layers, washed and dried Chimchilla.  It looked absolutely new.  Even the bits around the edges that had looked a bit worn, popped back into shape.  See, part of the feet dragging was the fear that this remake was not a matter of simply sewing up a new outer layer and sewing it to the existing chimchilla lining, but that I would have to do something about hiding the worn edges.  (Sometimes it really does not pay to overthink things – making mountains out of molehills and all that – because in my mind I had turned this into some sort of impossible project, when in fact it was not that at all.)  So - lining ready to go, but there was still the issue of what to use for an outer layer.  First place to look, before this turned into yet another marathon of “Oh – there’s nothing out there that could possibly work!”, was fabric at home.  And lo and behold – a beautiful piece of velveteen purchased from Distinctive Sewing Supplies many moons ago.  I had originally thought to make it into pants, but on second thought decided that it was too heavy for pants, and there it lay – enough for pants – not quite enough for anything else.  Problem solved – add a piece of black upholstery velvet for a back yoke – and we have enough fabric for a short coat.

You know that I couldn’t just leave it at that.   I absolutely had to make things a little more complicated.  And despite the fact that chimchilla is quite warm – I wanted a really, really warm coat.  Underline the velveteen in wool!  Brilliant idea.  And just because this somehow had turned into a “save the planet” project, and I was feeling quite awful about having to throw away a very, very worn old wool blanket that was far too thin for any use, the blanket became the underlining.  And since it was so thin, and wanting to droop, I “quilted” all the pieces.

Now nothing will shift inside.  Oh, and of course, with very thick seams now not wanting to behave, there was a fair bit of catch stitching that had to happen.

After all this ado, I really wonder why I managed to drag this out for sooooo long.  This coat has already seen a lot of wear.  It is incredibly warm, even though, perhaps not the most “practical” of coats, because it doesn’t button up “properly”.  I used up “stuff” that had been lying around for far too long.  (Just don’t spread the secret that I’m wearing an ancient wool blanket!)

As to what happened to the “no-good” wool layer that was removed from chimchilla – stay tuned.