A Cosy Mummy is a Happy Mummy

I've been meaning to post something about this coat for a while. I got started on it..oh, about 2 years ago! I bought the tweed - for a bargain five quid - and the pattern (a vintage Vogue) at a sale, thinking that coat making was way beyond my skills, but at the price, it was worth trying. And I was so right, it was horribly difficult, even trying to cut the pieces out, matching up the pattern. Then we decided to move house, so it all got packed away and neglected in a box for 18 months. I must have mentioned something to my mother-in-law, because when she came to visit us last October, she made me pull it out and gave me hope that it might just get finished. She helped me choose the lining and wonderful wooden buttons, and then we got cracking! You can see the pictures here. It was quite an experience, because she doesn't speak English, and I could barely understand the instructions on the pattern, never mind translate them into French for her. My machine whined and complained, but by the time she left, we had got most of it done. You can imagine what happened next...somehow, those odd little hemming and finishing jobs got put off, then it was almost Christmas, then the holidays, and still that unfinished coat was left hanging up in. However, in the freezing weather after New Year, I sat cosily by the fire and finished it off.

And I'm so glad I did, I have worn it and worn it again during this chilly winter, thankful of its length and warmth, and being big enough to snuggle many layers underneath. Merci encore Belle Mere!

I'm not sure I always looked this happy when I was sewing my coat, but this is the beautiful card my beloved and my sons presented me with yesterday. Along with flowers, tea, croissants and kisses. In bed. Cosy and happy.