A Brief History of My Life in Sewing, part 2... So Nice I Made It Twice

Shortly after I graduated from high school, I decided to make myself a coat. I fell in love with the long version of Butterick 4538, a reversible wrap coat. I bought ivory wool for the outer layer and rust wool for the reverse side. Instead of buying foldover braid, I made my own bias binding from black wool twill. The result was dramatic, to say the least.

You can probably guess what I'm going to write next. That's right! I could not find a photo of myself in that coat. (My family wasn't big on picture taking.)

I wore that coat for the first time on New Year's Eve. Still living at home, I told my mother that I was going to sleep over at my friend Lynn's house. That part wasn't exactly a lie, but before we went to sleep, we hopped into Lynn's car and drove into New York City to do some New Year's Eve clubbing at the Copacabana.

We checked our coats at the door and had a wonderful time, dancing the night away. We had so much fun didn't want to leave and were some of the last people to do so. It was around 4 AM when we went to the front desk to retrieve our coats. I handed the girl my ticket but she came back to the desk empty handed. Since the coat room was pretty empty by that time, it was pretty obvious that my newly sewn coat had gone home with someone else.

The loss of my coat meant I would have to fess up to my mother that I had lied about where I spent New Year's Eve. I ended up grounded for a week. It wasn't so bad. I used the time to cut and sew another coat in the exact same fabrics. I seem to remember that it looked even better the second time. Why not? I'd had a lot of practice.