Sunday, June 1, 2014

suit coat upcycled to General's uniform

Recently, my three boys participated in a Living Timeline for school.  They each chose a historical figure, dressed as that person, and gave a short speech about their life.  18 kids or so were in the living timeline.  Oldest to youngest, my boys were Thomas Edison, Harry Houdini, and General Stonewall Jackson.

Since Edison and Houdini mostly wore dark suits, those costumes were easily taken care of.


thrifted coat

For the General's uniform, I thrifted a grey men's suit coat to upcycle.  I shortened the sleeves and body.  The coat had gold buttons on it to begin with, so I removed them and saved them to use later.


yellow felt for a general's colar

I cut an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of craft felt in half and sew the pieces end to end.  Then I sewed the yellow felt to the underside of the up-turned color.  Once I rearranged the gold buttons the coat looked like this:


stonewall jackson coat

Four of the buttons fell off during rehearsal, so I sewed on replacements, and another fell off during the performance.  I guess I need more work on my button sewing technique :)


stonewall coat two

I loved this opportunity to sew for one of my sons  :)

However, this project has made it painfully obvious that outside of piecing a quilt, my sewing skills are all but nonexistent.  I would like to change that, so I can sew more things for my family.  Perhaps even conquer my fear of sewing clothing  :)

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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks fantastic, you have done a great job on transforming the suit coat. Upcycling old clothes can produce some amazing results from what might normally be discarded. Good luck with your resolve to learn clothes sewing. I sewed my childrens clothes before I began quilting. It is a very rewarding endeavour, however the introduction of very cheap clothing from large retailers has discouraged many people from sewing.

SIMPLESEW said...

stoppying by from the linky party Anything Goes Monday. come visit my blog, I have a giveaway.. My son wants me to do this with regular shirts, I am like do you know how many seam that is cutting. .

Angie in SoCal said...

I think you did a great job of recycling a jacket and creating that costume. LOL - it does seem the buttons need a little work. I taught my boys how to sew on buttons and that took care of that sewing chore.

Karin said...

Wow...that looks fantastic...I so admire people who can actually sew clothes. You done a wonderful job with that costume

Katherine said...

Great idea! I'm sure it's times like these that your son is happy he has a mama that knows how to sew. :o)

Janine @ Rainbow Hare said...

A living timeline is a great idea! I think you did a wonderful job with costume, buttons aside :D

Shauna said...

I think you did great, and I'm sure your son is going to remember the work you did for him more than a button falling off.

Rachaeldaisy said...

This jacket is such a clever conversion, well done!! And how wonderful that it's inspired you to learn more about sewing clothes.

Lorna McMahon said...

In spite of the button mishaps.... The jacket turned out great! What a fabulous idea!

Schulz Family said...

found you via anything goes Monday. I love this. What a great thing to do for your sons.

Muv said...

Hello Allison,
What a great project! I'm sure your son felt like a real general in his jacket.
If you can make quilts, there is no reason you can't make clothes - it's all sewing. I have lots of dressmaking posts on my blog which you might find helpful.
Love from England, Muv

Caffeinated Cotton said...

This is wonderful! I wish I would have thought of that when my kids were younger. I did make alot of dress up clothes for my kids. Dress-up was one of their favorite things to do but we never had a general's jacket, however we had an Abraham Lincoln outfit.