Saturday 20 October 2012

Personalising a jacket ...

I confess, I have a bit of a thing for coats. In the past I have bought long ones, short ones, leather ones, thick ones, thin ones, practical ones and darn right outrageous ones. No coat design has ever been excluded from my wardrobe.  We took part in our annual village sale this summer and in sheer gob smakingly immense willpower I sold the majority of my coats! *weep, sob, boo hoo, whail*.  The thing is, my love of coats is so strong I can't walk past a nice one without buckling and buying (Tina you have been on the vast majority of coat buying expeditions with me, you know how they send me weak at the knees and frankly a bit bonkers). Whilst weak at the knees and bonkers I have bought coats that don't fit properly (you know the ones that are all good until you need to move your arms or god forbid reach up), coats that are so heavy they give me back ache, rain coats that are not waterproof, coats that may do up one day, you get the jist. All of this impractical eye candy was sold.
Just like a proper hoarder, I have already started to replace my stash but just in a thrifty way.
I bought this jacket for £3.00 with a view to personalising it in some way. 
 
It sat on the back of our chair for way too long while I pondered on how to spruce it up. After inspiration wasn't going to strike I decided to get out all of my trimmings, fabric, buttons, etc and experiment.

I liked this idea and sooooo wanted to use Cabbages and Roses fabric but sadly it just didn't work.

 After much pondering, head scratching and then sewing this is the finished item.

I changed the three buttons on each sleeve, added pink ribbon and a ruffle.
 
I used silver thread to sew on the pink buttons.
 
I changed the drab grey buttons for mother of pearl ones...
 
which I sewed on with multi coloured metallic thread.

Full of doubts that my revamped jacket actually looked kinda silly, I wore it around to a friend house with a big rain coat on top. Clutching my rain coat around me I said "right, please can I have your honest opinion, do I look like a pleb in this jacket"?  There was a gasp, hands went up to her mouth, she paused for what seamed like an eternity, I started wilting in embarrasment, and then she finally said "Oh, Lou I love it". PHEW!
We agreed that it needed something at the top on the lapels but what ever I had previously tried looked over the top.  My friend sent me away with the most beautiful and perfect scarf that sets it all off a treat.  May be this is the first of a new coat phase???