Green Velvet Coat - A Refashion (Part One)

As most of you know, I really love refashioning and repurposing old and ugly clothes.  So, I wanted to share with you the work in progress of the refashioning of this old, dark green velvet dress.  It's a thrifted relic of a by-gone age from my older sister's younger years, and is at this point very, very worn.

So, though it is a pretty dress, it is much too yucky to be worn as-is, and I don't have any use for such a dress anyway. But looking at all that gorgeous green velvet in the skirt, I knew I had plenty of fabric to work with to create something new out of the dress.

I'd been playing with the idea of making a winter coat for myself for quite a while, using the same pattern I made my "battle Tauriel" dress out of, with some adjustments, of course, to make it a more modern piece.  While I was staring at this dress, trying to come up with some brilliant idea for it, I remembered that coat idea, and realized how cool a green velvet coat could be (something like this / this)...

See, I've recently become obsessed with the haute couture look, and have really wanted to try my hand at making something slightly "over the top" like that.  This velvet coat idea struck me as something that could be kinda couture-ish, which made me want to try it even more.

Now, keep in mind, I'm not finished with this coat yet.  I'm about half way through so far, and while I'm rather liking how it looks currently, it might look awful in the end.  If it does, we can all just have a good laugh over it when I post "Part Two" of this project.  Sound good?  Sounds good. ;D

Now that you've got all the exposition, it's time to plunge straight into my new project... The first thing to do was prep the skirt, so I could get the most out of the fabric.

Ripping out the gathers in the waist (it took f oreverrr).

Unfortunately, you can't iron velvet (because of how the fabric has a standing-up pile), so I just smoothed it out the best I could and started cutting out pattern pieces for the top of the coat.

After a few hours of work, I had all the main bodice pieces cut out, pinned, and ready to go.

Next, over the course of a few days, I did the sewing for those eight pieces...

After that was done, it was time to move on to the sleeves.  Getting these prepped is always easy, and I love the shape of this pattern's sleeves so there wasn't any cause for alterations.  After sewing them up, I pinned them to the main bodice.

And that's as far as I've gotten with the coat as of now!  It's not much to look at (lacking a collar, lining, and the peplum hem I'm planning to add to lengthen it), but I think it's a good start.  Hopefully I'll get this thing finished soon so we can all find out whether making a green velvet coat was a good idea or not... ;D