Snow day knockoff

This is west 38th's 300th blog post! Wow :o)

Like the rest of the east coast, we are currently getting some very heavy early season snow. It's been pretty heavy all morning and the wind is really picking up. I'm glad that it waited until this morning to snow, because last night was Lady Liberty's 125th birthday, and we enjoyed a great fireworks show for it. Here is the very very snowy view out of our window right now.

Since it's too snowy to drive to see the nieces get their Halloween costumes on for a party (which is likely cancelled, anyway, given the amount of snow we are expecting.....) I decided to break out a project I've been mulling over for a while.

I found this Derek Lam coat in a magazine at the end of the summer and loved the combination of yoke seam, powder blue, and pockets.

Then I found a similar Derek Lam coat, in an ad that has been in a few fall magazines.

Isn't it fantastic? Can you believe it's $2,000? Really?

At the NY Garment District weekend get together in September, I found some fantastic blue wool coating at Kashi's for the crazy price of $12/yard and I remembered the vintage coat pattern I had bought and then lost last year. It's longer, but I am in need of a longer coat anyway. But otherwise it's fairly similar.

And so I am working on a snowy day muslin. One interesting feature of this pattern is that there is a side panel with the pockets set into it, so you don't have to do welt pockets! And the seam between the side panel and the front, which has the pockets, is a 7/8" seam allowance. I've never seen that on a pattern before. I assume it's there so that you have room to slash in at the pocket corners.

Well, I am off to work on the muslin with a nice green smoothie. I am drinking these a lot for lunch: frozen banana + frozen pineapple + 1/3 cup OJ + a few handfuls of fresh spinach leaves. I am terrible at getting enough dark green leafy veggies and so this is a good & tasty way to get them in.