After five coat

After five coat, after the event.

As it turned out, the weather in Sydney last week for my conference was absolutely glorious, 20 °C and 21 °C most days and sunny. Wearing tights, I could’ve got away with a light wrap or no coat at all for the gala dinner, even by 2 am (yes, occasionally I do stay out late..).

Here’s the dress. The colours look much better at night time. Direct sun is not really flattering for anything is it? But it is grey and raining here back in Adelaide the last few days, so I took my chance for a photo for the blog. We didn’t get any taken on the night. Too busy having fun!

I’m very happy with the fit and the style-fabric partnership of this dress (BurdaStyle 08-2009-124, and I will post more about it soon). It received lots of compliments on the night, even from Chester Osborne. I’m not certain whether Chester’s compliment says as much about my stylishness as the coloured and interesting pattern of the fabric. (Chester is the loud shirt wearing, curly haired, gregarious chief winemaker at d’Arenderg Wines in South Australia). We did get talking about his sideline business in shirts and I put him onto Spoonflower- nothing like a bit of fabric knowledge sharing at a wine technical conference!

Technical details

Pattern: BurdaStyle 12-2012-117)

Size: 36-44, I made a 42.

Fabric: Wool cashmere coating with pleather in the side panels (underlined with silk twill) and a polyester lining.

This is as easy coat to sew with no collar and simple sleeves. There is no tailoring involved, only interfacing in the front and neck facings and strips of interfacing around the curved section seams where the pockets sit, the armscyes and the shoulder seams. Seems a shame for such lovely fabric but I had limited time.

I still haven’t made the belt. Well, I did try to make one in the stretchy pleather I used for the side panel inserts, but it was a hot mess. Clearly, I “need” to add one of those special feet for vinyl to my collection. Or make a belt in the teal coating…