What Cathy won + my pea coat fabric choices!

You may have heard that Cathy won Friday night's Little Black Dress contest at the Pattern Review anniversary party, held at Elliot Berman Textiles.  With a little help from you-know-who.

As you can see from the photo above, Deepika Prakash, Pattern Review's founder and CEO, could hardly keep her eyes (or hands) off the prize.  Cathy told me they nearly came to blows.  Just look at that body language!





I thought I'd share with you what Cathy, and I guess by extension, I won.  It is amazing stuff (donated by Elliot Berman).

Fabric #1 is a beautiful L. Mendel silk jacquard, made in Italy.  I'm not sure these photos do it justice; it has a marvelous sheen.





Fabric #2 is a laminated wool tweed by none other than Chanel.   





I'd like to thank Elliot Berman for these glorious fabrics -- as well as for their warm hospitality on Friday night.  Eugenia, who led the night's activities, was exceptionally complimentary about Cathy's dress.  Luckily, Cathy swore not to mention that the dress was made from $2/yd. acetate taffeta and that the total cost was less than Cathy's control-top pantyhose at our local Duane Reade drugstore.

Eugenia and Cathy trade compliments.

As if that weren't enough fine fabric for one day, this morning I spent most of my Mood allowance on wool coating for my Japanese pattern book pea coat -- my next Mood Sewing Network project and which will be unveiled late next week.  I have a lot of work to do!

Originally I thought I would underline the outer wool coating with a separate inner wool coating (and bind the seams with bias), like I did for my duffle coat a few years ago and which worked great -- the coat is light, warm, and on the inside, colorful.



But since I like both fabrics equally, I am thinking of making two separate coats and just lining them with standard lining.  The wool coating is pretty warm already and I like to layer.  So we'll see.

First, this Donegal tweed.





The second fabric has more of a Melton feel, smooth and slightly felted.  It's pale gray with solid and dotted brown stripes.







I was thinking that the Donegal tweed might be better for a raglan-style topcoat (I believe it's called a balmacaan; the things you learn sewing!) like the coat below.



But then I found this image on Pinterest:



If I could make a coat that looked like that, I'd be in seventh heaven.



So that's it, readers -- a lot of fabric to take in, I recognize.

Thoughts, suggestions, warnings?  I'm all ears.

Have a great day, everybody!