The Steamstress: jacket

November in North Carolina can be either lovely or cold. The weekend we were going to be spending the day outside at the RenFair was going to be brrrrrr – cold. So I decided a jacket was needed and I didn’t have time to make the one in my head from scratch. Instead of taking a day to figure it out, I stopped by the thrift shop on my way back from somewere else.

I got super lucky. I found a blouse to wear with ruffles at the neck – totally 80’s. The sweet woman at the counter said she thought it would be very pretty under a suit coat. Yes. From the 80’s. Perfect for a sort-of victorian look even if it is too much magenta  while I’m going for more of a red theme. I’m going to try overdying it with yellow RIT to see if I can warm it up. 

The real score was a buttery soft leather jacket. It fit me very nicely. A little too nicely. Nicer than the leather coat that I’ve (ahem) grown out of a bit. I thought of cutting up that one instead and keeping this one for every day but my current “real” jacket has a zipper and I needed a different style for the costume. Seriously – this was NICE leather!  I had a hard time just cutting into it but eventually held my breath and whacked away. Makes it easier when I only paid $20 for it.

I cut a bias strip and bound the edges then while I was working on the other accessories I thought about what to do for a closure.

At the thrift shop I also picked up a big bunch of chain jewelry, belts, and other oddments. One of the chains got taken apart and is now a “thingy” that I can clip things onto. Wait until you see what I clip onto it. It’s my favorite thing… EVER!!!