I made this a while ago but it never made it onto the blog. I have a collection of denim leftovers from garments I’ve made over the last few years, none of them big enough to make any sort of adult sized wearable garment, but too big to throw away. I hadn’t managed to do anything with any of them until earlier this year when my son needed a painting apron for art class.

I have finally finished my winter coat. This is vintage Vogue 1253 by State of Claude Montana from 1993. Boringly I made it up in pretty much the same practical colour as the sample, just with silver buttons and trim instead of gold. A winter coat needs to go with everything. I’ve completely failed to find any other contemporary images of the style so the pattern envelope is all I’ve got to go on for the original look.

Well it’s been a few weeks and I’ve been working hard (by my standards) on my coat project, but until two days ago no actual sewing had taken place. Pattern alterations; three rounds of cutting out (shell fabric, lining fabric, interfacing); fusing all that interfacing on - which took literally hours - have taken up the time. I’m making vintage Vogue 1253 from the 1990s, and it is huge.

Vintage Vogue 1253 envelope art This pattern is the top contender for my winter coat, vintage Vogue 1253 by State of Claude Montana from 1993. The envelope photo is very appealing while managing to obscure almost all the important details at the same time: top fashion photography there, Vogue. But as the line art below shows, it’s a very simple A line style with raglan sleeves.

Summer is over in the UK and my silver quilted winter coat from 2020 is showing definite signs of age. There’s a tear near one of the side seams (curse those brambles in the park) and the batting is losing its loft. If I start now I should be able to make a replacement before the really cold weather starts. So, what sort of coat to make?

I never thought I’d find myself sewing waterproofs. But I really struggle to find ones I like in the shops. Last year I tried to solve the problem by making The Assembly Line’s Hoodie Poncho in grey rip-stop nylon and looks-wise it was perfect, but I got fed up of showering everything around me with water when I take it off after coming indoors.

This is my second version of the Phen shirt from Pattern Fantastique, and this fabric is the reason I bought the pattern in the first place. It’s a silk/cotton blend with an amazing print that reminds me of the work of Paolozzi - better picture below. I bought it on a (rather expensive) impulse from Croft Mill last year and had been looking for a suitable pattern ever since.

This grey viscose shirt has become a very surprising wardrobe staple. The fabric was a bad Internet purchase that I thought I’d never find a use for, and the pattern has more than one issue. And yet it works, so much so that I’ve lost count of the times I wore it before we got around to taking photos. How did this come about?

Sharp angles and shoulder pads - it doesn’t get much more 80s than this jacket. The pattern is vintage Vogue 1382 by Claude Montana, published in 1984. The original version was made in a bright yellow fabric. Vogue’s envelope art usually shows a photo of the original garment, rather than a version made from their pattern, but the image is styled and shot by Vogue rather than the designer so the final effect can be very different from the runway styling.

It’s taken an age to get photos of these trousers; I normally do a blog post soon after finishing a garment but it’s been over a month since these were completed. And they’ve been worn four or five times already so they must be a success. The pattern is vintage Vogue 1382 from 1984 by Claude Montana. There are two different versions of the pattern envelope.