Clearly there is something wrong with my judgement, because I decided to sew myself a fur coat. Not a cushion cover. Not a skirt. A fur coat. In faux fur. The sort of thing sensible people politely stay away from, especially when their experience consists more or less of being able to hold a needle the right way round. But once an idea gets into my head, it does not leave quietly.
It all began with repeated trips to Abhakhan. Nothing was right. If the fur was beautiful, there was not enough of it. If there was enough, it had defects. Eventually I did find a faux fur I liked and bought three metres, together with lining and wadding. Materials acquired. Now I only had to know how to turn them into a fur coat. Minor detail.
I rummaged through Burda magazines and the internet. In a Facebook handicraft group I got plenty of advice along the lines of ‘don’t cut through the pile’ and ‘don’t let the hairs get caught in the seams’. Very useful, except I still didn’t have a pattern. Eventually I bought from BurdaStyle a vaguely fur-coat-like pattern, printed it out and began the grand project of sticking A4 sheets together. Twenty-nine pages. Quite a job for someone who had wanted to start sewing ages ago.
I cut out the lining and wadding, quilted them myself and wrestled with matching up the pattern pieces. On the floor, naturally, because I do not own a sensible large table. My back hurt, the quilting refused to line up at the side seams, and I constantly felt I was doing something wrong. The pockets completely confused me. I read instructions, examined my mother’s fur coat and tried to understand how the whole system worked. At some point it finally dawned on me that the lining is not actually sewn to the pocket. Sometimes it is exhausting being this ignorant.
Cutting the faux fur was a complete catastrophe. Hair was everywhere. Not a little. EVERYWHERE. The vacuum cleaner nearly choked and the room looked as though a furry animal had exploded in it. On top of that I had to watch the direction and pattern of the pile, so every piece had to be cut separately.
Little by little the coat began to take shape. I sewed the outer pieces together, picked trapped hairs out of the seams, attached the sleeves and fought with the pockets. Naturally I managed at one point to sew a pocket opening completely shut. At least I had only basted it.
The worst moment came when I started fitting the lining and discovered it was too narrow. HOW? It was the same pattern! But it was. Then I realised I no longer liked the fur either. Suddenly the whole thing felt wrong. So the first coat was abandoned half-finished and essentially moved under the bed to await its fate.
Some time later, naturally, I had another brilliant idea. I would make a second fur coat.
Before starting, I happened to read an old sewing book and honestly, I should have done that at the very beginning. It finally explained how padded coats are actually made, where the wadding is attached, why the lining needs to be larger and why people make test pieces before starting on the real thing. Little details that would be useful to learn before the nervous breakdown.
What did I learn? The honest answer is that I had known almost nothing beforehand. For example, padded coats often have a double layer of wadding on the body down to the hips and extra insulation over part of the sleeves. Or that the wadding is attached to the outer fabric, not to the lining as I had assumed. The lining also needs to be slightly larger than the main fabric so it does not pull anywhere later.
The shop did not have wool wadding, so the assistant suggested fleece instead. I bought that. I cut the pieces, made the lining slightly larger and left a pleat at the back so it would not pull. This time everything felt much more thought through.
I made a test pocket flap first because I had become at least slightly wiser after the previous attempt. And just as well, because smooth test fabric and the real furry fabric are two completely different worlds. I sewed the flaps, marked the pocket openings, reinforced the edges with fusible interfacing and basted everything carefully into place. When the first pocket was finished I was very pleased with myself. Too pleased. Because at the next pocket I eventually discovered that the bottom of the pocket bag was upside down at the top. I was not going to unpick it. I simply cut off the bottom section and sewed in a new one. A creative approach.
But I did finish the coat. With mistakes, naturally. Lots of mistakes. But finished.
And because there was fabric left over, I made a hat as well. That went wrong too, because a hat with lining and wadding has to be larger than the head circumference. Naturally I had not allowed for that. Luckily there was enough fabric and I could make another one. The hat also got a large flower, which my youngest son helped trim down to a normal size because at first it resembled a small sofa cushion.
Finally I sewed a pair of warm trousers as well. They came out about twenty centimetres too wide. I consoled myself with the thought that Christmas was coming and at least nothing would dig in anywhere.
The perfect ending to the whole fur-coat saga came from my eldest son, who looked at the result and said:
‘Well, it’s an old person’s… I mean, an older person’s coat. It’ll do.’ 😄