My current project is fighting me every step of the way. I need a cloak for earlier Victorian years so I don’t freeze to death at a Dickens Christmas “thing” I have this December. In central Canada, December is the beginning of a 3 month frosty period that can only be compared to walking wet and naked into a deep freeze. I decided I wanted something like this…
I wanted the colors to go with a few dresses and I wanted not to spend a million dollars.

I was looking in the dark brown tones of the woman behind Judy Dench (don’t you just love her?)
I went with a huge piece of synthetic fabric (inexpensive). First obstacle: I thought I had enough to use as both fashion fabric and lining. I had enough if I had no intention of moving my arms. So I found another fabric to line it. It was in my stash and it matched my trim so lets pretend I planned it shall we. I used the formally designated lining fabric to piece together a bigger piece for the fashion fabric.
Second obstacle: The above pictures look like 3 rectangles gathered up. Easy. And yet my bigger piece of fabric did not want to drape nicely. It rode up in the back for one, and I decided that once the inner lining was added for warmth it would be too thick and bunchy – it was already too bunchy without the inner lining and lining. Well, I always wanted to try draping and this seemed like an easy project for that so lets pretend I planned it shall we. So I did some trimming and shaping at the shoulders and neck. Now I am wondering if I am moving to far away from the shape and technique used in the mid-Victorian era. But there is no help for it. I just didn’t want to look like this:
Third obstacle: the felt, flannel and fleece I planned to use for inner lining were now not wide enough. So I spent a huge chunk of time piecing that together. I zig zagged that to avoid huge chunky seams inside the cape. Piecing is authentic right? Zig zagging isn’t though!
Forth obstacle: (and the one that made me grind my teeth and opt to move away from the sewing room). I went to press my seams…because that is what you do. If I had any doubt about my fabric being synthetic, they are gone now because I forgot to check the temperature of my iron and my fabric melted.
Let us pretend that I wanted to know for sure what the fiber content was and I planned it that way shall we? A small mercy is this was only the smaller collar part and it wasn’t the side that was already trimmed. Annoying but not catastrophic.
[…] Pattern: (Mistake number two) self drafted. To read what a “joy” self drafting this thing was click here. […]