Bracken Crafts- 100 garments: Sewing update: glittery pixie hoody dress

I have very little to show you this week sewing-wise.

I hand sewed a bit of my coat.

Then I had the great idea to add patch pockets to cover the mess I made if the welt pockets.

That looked terrible! To cover the welts ( which are different lengths and one is far wider than the other!) the patch pockets need to be huge which is fine but they sag to show the badly made welts inside. They only looked ok with my hands in them to hide the welts and I will never constantly have my hands in my pockets. Its just not realistic. The new patch pockets also completely ruin the look of the coat so its just not viable.

So I then removed them - sorry no photos. I then decided to unpick my welts which are different widths - as in the side to side width ( not sure how well you can see here but one hole is wider than the other and I had also totally missed out a flap and really do not know how to make these so it's bodge it time I am afraid to try and save a coat and make it wearable!)

I am now going to make part of each patch pocket into a fake welt flap which will I hope cover the badly made welt holes. Sorry no idea for the technical terms here at all.

I think it should work and my would-be fake welt flaps are looking good so far. They are tweed one side and faux fur the other. I have yet to determine which fabric will be the outer layer. Probably the tweed since the coat is such a mess I had probably tone all the details down and keep it as wearable as possible rather than draw attention to the dodgy bits.

What's left after that, assuming this idea works, is all hand sewing and I am finding it hard to get motivated to do it. The coat does now have a button.

A very nice family heirloom button which is I believe bakerlite. At the least its a pre-1960s button anyway that came from my great-aunts. They both died in the late 1960s. I vaguely remember them. They gave up their lives to bring up their younger brothers and sisters when my great grandmother died leaving them all children. My Auntie Lydia was eldest and only 15 when she took on the upbringings her 9 younger siblings. I think Auntie Annie was a year or two younger. Nowadays, the authorities would take over and maybe that's a good thing though I really am not so sure it is. My great aunties did a very good job of bringing up their siblings and they would probably have been split up in the modern Care system we have in the UK. Anyway it was a different time.

I inherited this button from them and have decided to make use of it. I had already decided last winter after several attempts at a machine made button hole that I will hand stitch one and I even bought embroidery thread to do it so that's now my next aim for this coat. Then it will just need a hem. But this is all if hand stitching so it's on my to-do list. Once the weather gets colder I will probably finally get this coat finished. I then have at least two more half finished coats so will make a start on one of them over winter I think.

I seem to feel coat making motivated once it gets cold but it seems I rarely finish them!

In the meantime, I have my camo short skirt I have been making since 2013 to finish. It's not difficult. I just don't seem to do it and always sew something else.

Similarly, last winter I began making a sweatshirt. It remains half sewn. It turned out to be a difficult sew and I needed a break to get my head round it. I think I have now got it sorted (in my thoughts anyway) so I just need to get on with the actual sewing. Both skirt and sweatshirt would be good for my winter look - as would the coat. So this is what I am currently working on.

But I did finish the pixie dress. And although its a make I have made previously its making me happy to wear this. Its very cold today ( for the UK!) so not really cold if you lived in many other countries.

This is therefore a not very original glittery sweatshirt dress which I have made numerous versions of before although this is far thicker and stiffer fabric than my previous ones. Well its sweatshirting, so not actually stiff but it does not hang as my previous versions. The godets kind if stick out a bit. I will wear this though because it's a dress pattern I love so hopefully the godets will just wear in.