Dearest Sewing Tribe,

I really wanted to also share a quick update about this jacket, which was on the Needlework Monday Featured Post #240 but my post was about the cloud handbag....

closing up the old buttonholes

The jacket had a big-minor transformation this week, just by adding buttons: I tried out a multitude of ideas with which buttons to add, and settled finally on these rather dramatic-but-harmonious ones; what do you think??

the final effect of a hard-worked-for button renovation!

The jacket was another incredible find on the 50c stall: usually they charge a whopping ONE EURO for jackets and coats, but the stall owner gave me a discount that week! So only 50c, for a perfect wool jacket - which was just missing buttons, as you might have noticed on my earlier photos: because I have quite a large button collection that has been building up in the past year, this was a non-issue for me!

final effect of the finished hooks-and-eyes: the hook needed to be left shiny on the hooking part, so to let it catch nicely with the eye

the colour combination is VERY satisfying!

I had some big black wooden buttons which were nice, but not perfect - which this perfect jacket merits; they had come off of some less-beautiful garment, I think it was an ugly cardigan, several years ago... So I thought about how to paint them a good colour, and went to the paint shop, where the guy eventually pulled out the perfect viola spray tin from the back cupboards... Spray paint is not something I am fond of, but needs must (for a button, which will get a lot of wear, and which any less-firm paint layer would come off from), and the can cost only 3 euros, so it was a worthwhile investment.... which I can maybe use too for something else.

one of several-issimo coats of paint!

The spraying was MUCH harder than I thought it'd be! It stuck to the card every time: I wanted to spray back and front of each button. Every spray coating I gave it, hardened and stuck at the edges to the card, then when it was dry and I turned them over to spray the other sides - the dried paint became reactivated and stuck AGAIN to the card! It took a lot of layers to get at least one side of each button neat enough! Wah!

I also had to search for giant hooks-and-eyes - grucche in local dialect, I was told by the guy in the shop - these biggest ones were just right, and I sewed them on neatly, then wrapped the lovely purple thread around them for an extra-neat effect. As I attached them, I made sure to add a few millimetres to the centre ones, to give more of a cynched waist.

my not-so-neat thread wrapping, done in the bar!

The wrapping was not as easy as it looks, either - which seems to be a theme in learning-to-sew! There are so many ways in which thread can get tangled around itself -and I appear to be fluent in all of them, hahaha!! Maybe the fact that I was sewing in the bar, whilst drinking a glass or two of red wine, might have contributed to the thread disarray...

sewing in low lighting is an extra challenge!

Either way, in the end, the effect is very pleasing for me, and I have been wearing the jacket out a lot: it is beautiful AND practical and warm! And it goes sooo nicely with my phone cover, which is made out of a favourite purple and green tartan wool. Yum!

LOvE to you all in your needlework fun this week!

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