Kyra modelling the felted jersey cardigan designed by Bess with integral glove puppets.
Fabrics and Notions:
Turquoise wool and polyamide felted jersey
Red viscose elastane jersey (binding and waist yoke lining)
Cover buttons
Wool wadding (collar interlining)
Viscose iron-on interfacing
Jacoba in her mixed fibre tweed skirt and mohair and wool coat.
Fabrics and Notions:
Suit: Mixed fibres tweed
Venezia lining
Invisible zip
Pattern: Butterick 4461
Coat: Wool mohair coating
Viscose satin lining
buttons
Viscose iron-on interfacing
Clair wearing Off-white raincoat with Kaffe Fassett Green spotty panelled dress.
Fabrics and Notions (raincoat):
Proofed cotton
Kaffe Fassett spotty printed cotton (lining)
Double cover buttons
Piping cord with self-made bias binding
Viscose iron-on interfacing.
Pattern: McCall’s 5525
Fabrics and Notions (dress)
Green Kaffe Fassett spotty printed cotton
Green Venezia lining
Invisible zip
Piping cord and bias binding
Knitted medium weight iron- on interfacing
Clair, being the queen of matchy-matchy fashion excelled herself here with this summer-weight all-weather ensemble. Proofed fabrics will need a sharp, fine needle, such as ‘super-stitch’ or those intended for use on microfibre
Poppy returning to the shop in her wonderful Issey Miyake designed alpaca wool tweed coat.
Fabrics and Notions:
Alpaca wool tweed
Pattern: Vogue (Issey Miyake)
This pattern has been going for years, it is cut in classic Issey fashion in that you don’t know what on earth is going on until it is all put together. It’s like witchcraft. Remember when choosing a coat like this that takes so much fabric (about four and a half metres, with hardly any wastage) to pick something light- unless you want to build up muscles!
Bess testing the waterproofness of her strawberry print Marimekko proofed cotton, lined in Kaffe Fassett spotty print cotton and fastened with oversize green plastic buttons
Fabrics and Notions:
Proofed Cotton from Marimekko
Kaffe Fassett spotty cotton lining
50mm green textured plastic buttons
Viscose iron-on interfacing
By lining a proofed fabric with cotton you regulate the often ‘sticky’ feeling you get from a laminate. Depending on how skinny you want the sleeves, and whether you are likely to wear a jumper underneath, it’s sometimes a good idea to line them in a more slippery lining, whilst keeping the main body in a funky cotton.
Bess in her proofed linen mac (originally white, but had a little accident in the washing machine. It’s fine! She likes pink too)
Fabrics and Notions:
Ivory proofed linen
Red proofed cotton
Anorak snap fasteners
Viscose iron-on interfacing
Bess with her super-warm wool wadding quilted wool tweed coat
The hood unzips to flatten out as a collar, and the sleeves have big box pleats that get graunched in at the cuff. The Gucci coat that inspired it was made from proofed nylon and stuffed with down.
Fabrics and Notions:
Shetland Wool Tweed
100% Wool Batting (for the quilting)
Tactel Breathable Windproof lining
Viscose iron-on interfacing
Satin Bias Binding and piping cord
Open-end metal zips
Anorak Snap Fasteners
Pattern: Custom made
There is a fine pink window-pane check in this coat, that would completely disappear from view at night time, there was a certain amount of swearing done when trying to match the invisible checks, but (as of May 2012) this coat has survived Bess’s tom-boy antics for six winters, with little more than a biro-ink stain. This is the go-to-coat-of-choice as soon as the temperature drops, so it was definitely worth it
