Coral Coat

I'd planned to sew up a shirt (for me) over the weekend, but when I went into my sewing room* on Saturday to gather all my materials, I suddenly turned tack and decided to finish up my second coat, which had been languishing on the guest bed for almost a month.  I'm glad I did, because the weather turned tack also, so I got to wear it out to a concert and dinner yesterday afternoon!

My original plan for this coat was to make bound buttonholes, and in all honesty, that is part of the reason I dawdled with finishing it.  Somehow it just wasn't feeling right.  Once I got the body constructed to the point where I had to make the decision, I stewed on it for a while.  In the end I felt that this cotton sateen has more of a casual feel, and to me bound buttonholes are fancy.  So I decided to go with the keyhole buttonholes again. 

I did, however, stick to my original plan of making self-covered buttons.  It was my first time doing that, and boy, is it fun!  I want to do it all the time now!  But those people who have said you don't need the kit and that you can just push the backs onto the button must have super strong fingers.  I not only used the kit and its "pusher" - I also had to push the pusher down with my rawhide mallet rather than my fingers!  This could be because my fabric is thicker, but my fingers and wrists are definitely weak - probably from all these years of knitting.

After I made my first coat, I did wear it a couple times.  But I felt like I kind of boxed myself in with that loud print:  most of my clothes are patterned, and I don't feel comfortable wearing the coat with a pattern it clashes with.  That one also has a fancier feel to me, so I'm likely going to be wearing that for dressing-up occasions (and with the few things in my closet it goes with), and this will be my "every day" jacket.

Yesterday it was warm and sunny so I wore the coat on its own.  This morning when I went out, it was quite a bit nippier, so I added a scarf and hat - I really liked how these three items worked together, since the scarf has both the coral of the coat and the lavender of the hat:

The hat is a Kim Hargreaves design (of course!) that I love so much I made it five times!

I like how the coat looks with the top button open, and I'll probably wear it that way a lot.  I've noticed on both these coats that when I button the top button, the little edge at the top doesn't want to stay tucked under the collar, so I'm thinking about going back and adding a snap.  However, that would show with the collar open and not look so great.  What to do?  Maybe a hand-worked thread loop and button.

Here's the back, all  rumply from wearing:

I'm happy I made this second, solid-colored coat, but I think I'm done with this pattern now for a good long while.  I was so excited when I made my first one that I started the second one immediately.  However, my enthusiasm quickly wore off, so it made this coat seem more of a chore than an adventure.


*a.k.a. the guest room