Finished! Katwise Sweater Coat for Lizzie

13:49

Hi friends,

This sweater coat has been hanging over my head now for two years. It's taken me that long to find enough jumpers with at least a bit of wool in them for felting! Our local charity shops seem to be of the mindset that if there's wool on the label it should be marked at £5+, regardless of whether it's already preshrunk (usually is!) or not.

In the end, my local Barnados donation centre (all clothing 99p) came up trumps in the men's knitwear department!

My sister Lizzie (aka the Patterns to Print Minion) was desperate for a Katwise sweater coat, so we did a skill swap. I made her this coat and she is making us a crochet blanket for our bed. Although by my calculations I still owe her around £400 of skills. I think she'll be having sewing lessons...hurrah!

The skirt on this coat has a 20ft hemline, the hood is approximately 4ft long and the front binding knit is around 10ft.
I lost count of how many spools of thread I used, I should have bought cones.... It's fine using spools if you have a large quantity, but I had to re-thread my machine countless times!

The coat is perfect for swirling and twirling

I couldn't find a jumper to use for the bodice, so constructed one from other sweaters using the Oslo pattern from Seamwork as a base, which was ok, but not brilliant. Plus it kinda stretched once the skirt was put on, despite the wool for the bodice being really well felted!

If it's very chilly (but not wet, the wool jumpers have a slight wet sheep smell when damp), Lizzie can wrap the hood around as a sort of built in scarf.
She's also managed to turn it into a cowl too, but I haven't got a great pic of that.

Apparently Lizzie had great fun twirling for these photos, this is my favourite photo of her in the coat!

This coat was one of my Q1 Finish Along goals and started out as this pile of shrunken wool jumpers!

I've still got a rather large to-do list, so I suspect my Q2 FAL list will be fairly chunky!

I wonder what everyone else will make in Q2!

Samantha

Hi, I'm Samantha, aka Mrs H. I write sewing patterns for bags and love seeing what you create with my designs!

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11 comments

Jake4 April 2015 at 15:43
Golly she is one lucky gal! i love love love that thing! i would love to find a pattern for a fabic version of this. i have only ever sewn bags and quilting, but i bought my first ever clothing pattern this week for a little girls ruffled romper thing and i am hopeful. i dont have the patience to do the fittin g type 0f patterns that we as adults would want, but things like kids clothes and an AWESOME jacket like that one you made, i thi k is doable....with a pattern. im not intuitive with clothing...though most bags and quilts are easily made just by looking at the photo. samantha, you have really outdone yourself with that jacket. i really really love it
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Terri D4 April 2015 at 21:30
WOW!!!! I've never seen anything like that before! How amazing, and she wears it so well....like it was made just for her!! ;) You have a huge talent. Huge!
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Jake4 April 2015 at 21:36
WOW! youve ruined me Samantha first, sall your fabulous bags and NOW a link to this coat tutorial download! just purchased it/ ive got to have something this cool. and then, as if thastr is not bad enough, ive ZNEVER sewn clothing....urgh. and then...the shop owner, katie...shes got a website with more super cool stuff Credit card is doing warm up exercises while i browse....THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for sharing this....you have a VERY VERY VERY fortunate sister! got any openings for another sister? i dont crochet, but i mcould make you something...if i cant figure this out, we might have to negotiate. even though im in the states, the shipping will be well worth it. GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLYYY you are so talented with that machine of yours and that exhaustively creative brain.....
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Unknown5 April 2015 at 21:33
Absolutely wonderful. I had never seen anything like it before. I can't imagine dealing with the 20' of hemline. What a beautiful labor of love. Great coat!
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Benta AtSLIKstitches6 April 2015 at 08:49
Aren't you a fab sister! That is an amazing creation! Aren't the 99p charity shops an amazing invention!
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MOMENTS Designs6 April 2015 at 16:18
I soooooo want this coat!!!
Since your sister & I have the same name, do you think we could do "time Sharing " on it ???
I soooo want this coat!!
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teribus6 April 2015 at 17:32
This is awesome. And the joyous photographs are the icing on the cake! I daren't look at the website.
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legato19586 April 2015 at 19:44
So pretty! I had never seen a Katwise coat before, and looked it up ! Very cool! And I love that you two are trading to make things for each other! What a fun project to share with us!
Susie
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Sally8 April 2015 at 15:42
This looks like it would be incredibly warm! I love the colors, too. Wish I had a sister to trade crafty skills :)
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Adrianne @ On the Windy Side15 April 2015 at 10:15
Wow - what an amazing project!
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