Last week, I received all four yards of the pretty pink coating I ordered.  After all the cutting was done, turned out that was a yard and a half too much.  Regardless, with that here, and having purchased some Eddie Bauer brand lining at a great deal, mom invited me over to my parents’ place to start cutting. 

I was chastised about this when I arrived, so I’ll explain why it was so important.  When working with fabric you’re not going to wash in the washing machine, it’s still imporant to think about how it’s going to react to getting wet and warmed up.  Since this is a coat and exposed to the elements, that will probably happen quite often.  So it was important that the wool coating was steamed and then given time to dry.  In our case, since I didn’t so that at home, we steamed it there and put it in the dryer on low heat.  The fabric probably shrank a smidge, but better now than after it’s sewed and ends up getting We distorted. 

It’s also really important to read what’s written on the pattern pieces themselves.  There were a couple parts that I would have missed on my own if I weren’t starting this with my mom.  For instance, FOUR pieces of the pocket had to be cut, instead of just two, like everything else.  (Same with another piece that is the front of the coat).  Also, there was a small strip of interfacing that went onto the ruffle piece, that we didn’t notice until we were looking at the pattern for the ruffle. 

We got all the pieces cut out yesterday, so I’m off to sew as much as I can.  I’m still a bit under the weather, so this will be a good inside project for me to work on until I recover.