Coat and Jacket Pattern Contest Entries: Part 2

Another thing I love to see is how customers modify our pattern to suit their needs or style.  Shirley did this with our 207 Kinsale Cloak and modified the front to include openings for her arms, a closure on the front, and adding zippered pockets to the lining.  She used a warm alpaca for the main fabric and a silk for the lining, both obtained during her world travels.

Karen also made our 254 Swing Coat.  She said, "I was working for Save San Francisco Bay in Oakland, CA and commuted on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). Sometimes I was so cold waiting for the train on the outdoor concrete platform. If only I had a blanket. So I made this coat. It attracted so much attention."  

Finally, I want to show off a few coats that are a bit more unusual.  First, the 502 Russian Cossack Uniform, which is not really in print, but that we do have available as a very basic PDF pattern.  Tracy made a cosplay work of art with the pattern, and I will let her own words explain it: "I used your pattern #502, Russian Cossack Uniform, to make cosplays for myself and my husband - and won our division in a cosplay contest with them! When the COVID vaccine came out and the conventions resumed, I wanted to do a cosplay that no one had ever done and seen before. I had a lot of plain cotton fabric left over from pandemic mask sewing, so I needed a design that looked good with plain fabric. In the comic Homestuck, Vriska Serket and Sollux Captor are aliens from a rather warlike species; like the Cossacks, they're great fighters but you wouldn't want them as neighbors. I used the details from the comic to design the outfits - for example, both characters are associated with astrological symbols, so I created machine embroidery files to add their symbols where a historical Cossack uniform had a unit patch; both characters are associated with a specific color, which I used as the main color on the outfits.. Cossacks carried ornamental fake cartridges called gaziri in their patches; my husband made resin molds for our gaziri and imprinted them with images that fit the characters' themes - spiders and spiderwebs for Vriska and bees for Sollux. Vriska always wears blue, with red shoes; since Sollux has a bee theme, I gave him a black inner tunic."

And every time I see a 260 Sunburst Cocoon Coat, I want to bring it back into print. This out of print pattern makes a stunning coat.  And, to give you so behind-the-scenes info, we brought this pattern out this past year to see about getting it digitized and back in print, but the pattern pieces were so massive (they won't fit on any printer page we could use - and there were so many), that I gave up on it at the time.  I need a little more planning time to figure this out, but it is on the list to do! So, seeing this beautiful coat by Jaine.  She says, "Sunburst Cocoon Coat is still my all time favorite — not only of jackets and coats I've made, but also of all the many Folkwear patterns I’ve used. . . . The jacquard fabric weight is perfect for spring and fall weather; the contrast is a finer rayon jacquard used for both lining and piping to punch up those exquisite design lines further than topstitching."  Beautiful!

Again, tell us your favorites!  What coat do you love?  What coat/jacket do you want to make next?  We love to hear what you think!