Happy holidays, everyone! I made a bunch of things for gifts this December, and I’ll be sharing them with you over the next little while. The first up is definitely the craziest thing I made. It was for my sister, and I initially planned to make something different (which shall remain a secret because I might use it as a birthday present for her in September), but then I saw this fabric and it was on sale and I just couldn’t get the idea out of my head. The fabric in question was a very neon pink faux fur at Fabricville. It was so neon and blinding that when I was having it cut, I was looking at it and then when I looked away from it everything else in the store looked slightly green tinted, like when you’ve been wearing ski goggles for a while. None of the photos below have been edited at all, the colour you see is the real deal and is fully representative of how bright it is in person.
The pattern is the Oslo Coat, from Tessuti. I looked around at a lot of coat patterns before deciding on this one. I wanted something that was pretty simple because of the fabric I was using, I wanted it to be a longer coat, and I wanted it to have a simple closure. It couldn’t have patch pockets because I didn’t want to deal with that, but I did want pockets in general. The Oslo was a great match because it’s designed to be closed with a single button, has side seam pockets, and doesn’t have a ton of seam details.
I did a bunch of reading about sewing with faux fur, and everyone kept raving about how you would find it EVERYWHERE for ever and ever after sewing with it. And I can attest to the truth of that. I have vacuumed probably 8 or 9 times since making it, and it’s still turning up everywhere. A button-up shirt I made (which I’ll post about later) had a pink fuzz over it even after using the lint roller on it. It turns up on my clothes that haven’t even been downstairs near the sewing zone, and the whole time I was sewing with it I kept thinking, perhaps I should be wearing a dust mask? To the point that in my mind I felt a pink fuzzy coating on the inside of my lungs and mouth.
I cut it out with the fur side down, and traced all the pattern pieces onto it (which I don’t normally do) using a black Sharpie. I was careful to make sure all the nap was pointing in the same direction. I initially started out using an exacto knife after the internet told me to, but mine was really dull and annoying and I found using my regular scissors very carefully allowed me to cut through the backing and not the fur, so it was fine. I think it would depend on the length of your fur pile as to how critical the cutting method is. The pile of this fur is relatively short, so I think it was a bit more flexible.
Top-stitching around the collar and front and having to switch at the break point was a bit tricky, because this fabric doesn’t especially like to be top-stitched, and it was hard to get the seam allowance to lay in one direction because the backing is actually a knit and is a bit more curly. I debated hand-tacking after I’d top-stitched to make sure the seamline rested right at the edge, but after pressing it very gently with a pressing cloth I found it wasn’t really necessary and could be manipulated by hand.
Once the lining was in, I had muuuuch less fur flying around because it was all enclosed inside. Thank goodness. I tested the vacuum on a spare piece of the fur to make sure it wouldn’t mess it up, and it was fine, so after the lining was bagged out and I’d sewn the hole shut I ended up vacuuming the whole coat gently in order to get rid of all the loose tufts hanging around. This seemed to work pretty well, as I haven’t had a ton of fur residue get onto things that the coat was touching.
For closures, I knew a buttonhole wouldn’t work (although I still tried it on a scrap just in CASE but it looked terrible and my sewing machine threw a hissy fit). I researched fur coats and discovered there are things called fur hooks that are used to keep them closed. My local fabric shop had them in stock, surprisingly, so I got a couple and sewed them on as the closure (there’s an interior button to make the overlap lie flat) but the second I tried it on it was terrible. You could see the hooks sticking out and it really didn’t work with the weight and drape of the faux fur, so I ripped them out and went back to the drawing board. I searched through my hardware drawer of my mini filing cabinet and found two giant sew-in snaps left over from when I made a Clare coat for my ex’s mum 3 years ago. I sewed these in and it turned out perfectly! I’m really happy with the closures and how they look, as well as the ease of use.
I used a 100% polyester lining for the inside, which I normally wouldn’t go for, but the faux fur is polyester so I figured it would be a bit unnecessary to get all noble and insist on rayon bemberg lining. Especially since I really wanted it to be just as pink on the inside as the outside. The colour selection wasn’t great, but luckily they had this random pink that pretty closely matched the fur! Win!
This was such a fun project to work on, and I really love how it turned out! Amy is super into it, which is all I can hope for. I kept trying it out as I was making it because it was such a hilarious thing to have in front of me. Partway through I was doubting whether it was just TOO EXTRA but I’m glad I didn’t call it off, because I think it’s faaaaaaabulous! What do you think? Does it hurt your eyes?!
