Upcycling A Coat!

I recently bought a secondhand coat online but it just wasn’t quite the right colour for what I wanted, however as I loved the fabric I hung onto it and decided to upcycle it and turn it into something else. 

I wear my fleece cat ear hood everyday walking my dog Luca and I’ve been wanting to make a different, lighter fabric one to wear for the slightly warmer spring months. I thought the coat fabric was perfect for this and it also meant I could practise a new bonnet pattern for my Sarah Sprout Collection. 

1. I started by drafting the cap pattern, I used a medieval hat shape as the base for this idea, then cut it out of upcycled duvet fabric & pinned it all together. I had to pin & unpin it several times until I had a shape that worked.

2. I then cut the coat up (which was so fun!) and cut a lining out of the duvet fabric. 

3. I then sewed all the pattern pieces for each layer together.

4. Then I pinned both layers together at the bottom and sewed them together on my machine.

5. I decided to hand sew the front seam to hide the stitches and create a neat finish.

6. Then because I couldn’t resist I added some adorable bear ears, this seems to be my thing at the mo. I finished the bonnet off with some ties made out of that same material as the lining fabric, so it all tied in. 

The Finished Bonnet.

The whole drafting of the pattern and trial and error pattern testing took about 4 hours to get to the finished piece and obviously I had to try it on to check the fit, an insight into a wild Saturday night at my house!  

I’m really pleased with it and now I have a new super cute bonnet for me to wear on chilly days and a great new pattern I can use for Sarah Sprout so keep your eye out for new creations!

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