The Long Awaited Vogue 8959 Cape

Yes…. I have FINALLY finished my cape….only a year in the making!!

I started this project last October…. it was actually a goal for 2015, but yeah that didn’t happen!  HOWEVER, this has been in planning stages since the beginning of 2014…. which is when I ordered the fabric!

The pattern is Vogue 8959, I made the shortest version A.  I had looked at a couple of other patterns, including the Milano Cape from Papercut, but this one had everything I wanted. Plus a good price when I waited for a pattern sale and hey look it’s on sale again!

This was the first Big Four pattern I’ve sewed up in a while…. and boy howdy did I miss my Indie patterns!  Despite it being a “Very Easy” pattern, the directions were lacking and the line drawings were less then helpful.  At a certain point I just stopped using the directions and went by gut

The fabric is a very lovely brown, black and off-white herringbone coating from Mood…which they haven’t had in stock for years!  In looking back at my order history, this was my very first purchase from Mood 😀
The lining is a Bemberg rayon lining from Jo-Ann’s….. and it was a BITCH and a half!!

First off she was a shifty bastard!  Which I expected, what I didn’t expect was my other troubles!  …I’m not sure if I cut it out wrong, if the pattern was off or what, but the lining ended up being too small for the cape!  I ended up using some grosgrain ribbon I had in my stash to extend it, which I actually really like 😀

However, pretty ribbon couldn’t fix the fact it was also too short at the collar!  I ended up doing a patch job, which worked out pretty well.  Buffy the Seam Slayer and I certainly spent a lot of quality time together on this one!

You can also see here that I haven’t finished the button holes yet
Yes, in a desperate attempt to get it done in time to wear on a day trip to Asheville I Fray Checked the ever-loving-shit out of them and just wore it.  Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone 😉
I plan to work the button holes by hand before I have to go back to work.  The buttons themselves are vintage from my Grandmother’s stash… I had originally wanted leather, but I’m really digging these 🙂

When I started this project I had wanted to use it as an opportunity to learn some fancy tailoring techniques.  That started with refusing to use fusible interfacing… and also ended there
I used some muslin as interfacing (I honestly can’t tell you why now or even if it was “right”).  It turned out ok, but the collar could use some extra stability.

These are the arm slits…. I’m mostly including this shot as an excuse to show the next shot of the topstitching process on these….’cause it’s hilarious!

HA!

I originally planned this project for Charleston “winters”, but was pleasantly surprised at how warm the cape was.  Granted we’re having an unseasonably warm winter so far…and I love it!  Even still it will definitely be counted towards my ‘Winter is Coming’ wardrobe 🙂

Part of the reason for the big push to finish this (aside from the fact it’s been languishing for a year) was I wanted to include it for Allie J’s Social Sew.  I really loved participating for the TnT month and had literally planned projects for the rest of the year that could link in…. none of which happened 😦
Which was why I was SO excited when she included a Winter Cape as part of the Inspiration post for the December Holiday Glamour month.  Perhaps not the classic glitz and glamour holiday- more of an English country house holiday glamour, but fuck it we’re going with it!!  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!