Kids' Wool Coat with Matching Purse

Hi! I made this coat and purse for my niece about a year ago for Christmas 2017.

My mom actually has a child dressmaker’s form. 🙂 This coat was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. It didn’t turn out perfectly (the collar is a little weird) but I still like it. And now you can learn from my mistakes!

The pattern for the coat is Burda 9501. In my opinion, Burda is never very good with directions although they often have really great designs. They’re a German company and a lot of their promotional stuff, like their Facebook page, is in German (though the patterns through Simplicity are in English), and I wonder if that makes directions get lost in translation. They kind of remind me of Ikea too because they make use of a lot of pictures in place of words. Anyway, the collar area was so difficult, I cried about it for days.

I got the fabric at Mood Fabrics online, my favorite fabric store. You can still get the same fabric here. It comes in a panel instead of by the yard and there was just enough to make this coat with a little extra. Since this had a directional pattern and needed to have pieces cut on specific parts of the fabric, I couldn’t use the cutting layout provided in the pattern, but it was still enough fabric. On the Mood site, there is one review for this fabric from me. I feel bad about it because it talks about how I ruined one part by ironing. It was totally my fault though because I didn’t iron it right. I ironed directly on it instead of using a cloth. I thought it was ok since it was on the wool setting and thought it was the fabric’s fault. But I can’t rescind the review. Anyway there’s one section that’s on the inside that I ruined from a too-hot iron. That’s also what caused the iron marks on my lighthouse pillow from the last post!

I used these buttons in 28mm and 18mm (the smaller ones were for a back detail) and this silk habotai for lining. I often use silk thread with wool, but I think for this I just used regular all-purpose thread.

For the purse, I just used a tutorial I found somewhere. I cut 2 pieces of wool and 2 pieces of lining a bit bigger than the purse. I sewed them together and then glued it to the metal frame. I hand stitched the corners that met the frame where it opens because it needed some reinforcement. I put some keys inside since she was really into keys at the time. ☺️

I have made several pieces of outerwear for myself and kids, so I’ll share more later! I just love wool and Mood always has great wool options.