Worn Out, Or Well Loved?

“To be worn out is to be renewed.”~Lao Tzu

My cousin Dana had been helping her aunt go through her grandfather’s house. While there she ran across this corduroy jacket. It was very small and lined with black velvet trim. It had been worn so much that it had shredded under the arms. Dana thought it would be worth while to keep it, and gave it to me to see if there was anything I could use it for.

It was beyond any repairs I could give it. I washed and dried it and set it aside.

Then I came across it again and had an idea.

First though, lets talk about the jacket. It had a worn tag which said, “Fashioned by flobert”.

I started doing some digging around on “Fashioned by flobert”. I like to consider myself a fashion archaeologist. Digging though the ruins of old clothes to discover their story and history. “Fortune and glory”, like Indiana Jones says. If only I was that cool! HA!

It was a little difficult since there is also a gun by the name of “flobert”. I did, however, find out about the fashionable flobert.

The Flobert Co. was a maker of women’s fashionable, negligees, pajamas, robes, and lounge wear. They were big in the 1950’s-1960’s. This was more than likely not a jacket, but a house coat.

Their products were also very high end, being sold in stores like Lord & Taylor. This would probably be the reason someone would hold onto a very worn house coat, because once upon a time it cost a lot of money.

For reference, here is a picture of Lord & Taylor’s lingerie department, circa 1960.

Well, it’s like I said though, the house coat was beyond repair. I decided to make a jumper for Alice with this pattern from 1981 out of the house coat. Who better to continue to wear the coat in another form than the original owners great-granddaughter?

First, I had to cut the seams of the jacket away. There would be no way to seam rip them without further damaging the fabric.

To get the right amount of fabric out of the jacket, I had to pick the pockets off.

You could still see where the pockets had once been. I could also tell that lots of tissues had been washed while in the pockets. The lint was left in the grooves of the fabric. I used an old toothbrush to sweep it away.

I laid out the pattern back piece of the jumper pattern on the two pieces of fabric that had made up the coat fronts. The pocket lines would be visible but I would deal with that later.

The jumper front I laid out on the back panel of the jacket. There was room for the front facing piece too.

The leftover pieces, like the sleeves, had to be cut and pieced together to make pieces big enough for back neck pieces. I feel like I just said “piece” a lot. What can I say, I had to do lots of piecing!

Jumper front and back with the facings sewn in.

Pinning the front and back sections together.

Time to cut out the pocket, and inspiration struck! I had shown Alice and Dana a couple of button choices for the jumper and Alice chose some novelty buttons that look like strawberries. This gave me an idea of how to dress up the jumper and hide the pocket lines on the back.

I just happen to have an embroidery machine, AND just happened to have a strawberry applique design for it. I got to work on my embroidery machine.

The machine stitched out where the strawberry would be. I laid this strawberry fabric, leftover from Mia’s apron. (See previous blog post “Strawberry Girl”.) The machine then stitches the fabric on in the shape of a strawberry.

I then cut the excess fabric away.

The machine shows you what stitches go where so you can change the thread color.

Stitching it down more.

Doing the same for the green top.

It then does a thick stitch around the outside.

I didn’t like the way it turned out. It’s been a while since I’ve done an applique embroidery, and I should have cut the excess fabric back more. I also thought that the yellow strawberry seeds made it too busy with their already being print on the fabric.

I had enough fabric to do it again.

I used more scrap fabric to make a bias tape trim. I would use this to hid the pocket line on the back of the jumper.

Button hole time for these cute strawberry buttons!

The jumper was done! Only one more thing to do.

Do a photo shoot!

Alice is ready for February and Valentine’s Day in her new jumper!

She’s not sure about photo shoots, but she’s a natural!

There were so many cute pictures I had to use almost all of them!

Alice insisted on wearing her dinosaur shoes. I think they’re a perfect match to the green on her strawberry pocket. She knows what she likes, and what looks good!

Pretending to be a dinosaur herself! Maybe a plant eating one! HA!

She’s thrilled with her new outfit! Who wouldn’t be with details like these.

Cute buttons, matching pocket and trim!

Her strawberry buttons of choice!

Ok, so it was a little big and Dana had to tie it in the back for the pictures. She’ll have it for many more years as she continues to grow!

This was a fun one for sure! Making cute things for Alice is always fun. I also liked the challenge of turning a worn out, but well loved house coat into a jumper for a well loved little girl.

As for me, onto the next!