Complete the ensemble

Are you sick of the coats yet? Try not to be! We visited a holiday bazaar this weekend and people kept stopping us to comment on the kids’ coats. Ok, ok, Mr. Gren: You were right! People love the coats. Now we’ll have to see if anyone will buy them.

So, the last time I posted about the coats, I mentioned making fancy hats for the girls. Those whipped up pretty quickly and they turned out just so cute! Like, can’t-stand-it cute. The hats are fleece, as well as the small flowers. The hats are three pieces: the top, the crown, and the band. Easy! The flowers were fun to do. Take a narrow strip of fabric; put in a gathering stitch along one side; pull up the gathers and then roll and hand-tack into a rosebud shape.

As an added photgraphic bonus, Rana is wearing the ABC jumper I made her for school and Granota is wearing my Hanna Andersson knock-off dress. I didn’t get very good pictures of those back when I first made them.

This was the last of our good weather here (late October-November has been gorgeous!), so we took the kids down to play at the river for a little while. The girls tried their hands at fishing.

Now, there were a few people who were concerned that the girls get all the love and Konik is left freezing to death. Not to worry, though! I made him a coat last year which was big then and is still a little oversized this year. We might even be able to use it again next year, who knows!

A few tips for sewing with plaid:

• Identify the dominant stripe in the pattern. You’re going to base the arrangement of your pattern pieces around it. You want the dominant stripe to highlight the main lines of the garment — center front and center back.
• Also be aware of the horizontal stripes when you cut the fabric. You want them to line up all the way around the garment. You can see how the horizontal stripes meet across the two front pieces of the coat; the same is true of the side seams where they meet the back piece. And, if there is also a dominant horizontal stripe in your plaid, you want that to hit appropriate parts of the body as well.
• This might mean that you don’t exactly follow the pattern piece layout given in the sewing pattern instructions, but that’s ok. Some of the pieces that you would normally cut out two at a time (the front pieces and the sleeves, for example) are better done one at a time when dealing with plaid. It’s the only way you can really ensure that the plaid will match up like it should.

Notice how the dominant stripe runs right down the center of his back, including the collar. This is the kind of thing that most people don’t think about when they see a plaid garment done right. But, boy, do you ever notice if that plaid is the slightest bit off. It’s worth it to take some extra time and make sure it’s right!