Le Marais Coat

Remember this picture I teased you with on Friday? Of course you remember! You've been holding your collective breaths in anticipation of more, right? (Well, maybe one or two of you have.)

Yes, it's a hat... and now you get to see the rest of it. You must pretend that little red bottle is a head, okay? It was the quickest thing I could grab when taking the pics. And hey, the colors are right!

The hat can be worn with the brim up or down. It's also reversible!

What would a little girl (particularly an American Girl doll) need to go with a hat? A bag, of course. And since I'm a bag lady, I was easily able to make a tote bag to go with the hat. For the little girl's library books, I'm thinking. The bag is also reversible, and is solid red inside.

Is there anything else a little girl would need to go with a hat and a bag? How about a coat?

A nice, warm corduroy coat...

...with princess seams, even!

A fully lined coat, of course. With a lining to match the hat and bag.

  

So here you have the whole ensemble:

The coat is the Le Marais coat, made from a pattern I bought from Liberty Jane Patterns. I've found and downloaded so many free patterns that I certainly wasn't going to buy any doll clothes patterns! Until I came across the Liberty Jane website. Oh, my... you can't imagine all the adorable doll clothes patterns they have! I may have bought a couple more. ;)

There were 20 pattern pieces for the coat! All but 2 of them were cut double, so that made for 38 fabric pieces total! It wasn't hard to sew, but time consuming because it was sew/press/topstitch a lot, plus some hand sewing on the lining. But well worth my efforts, I think. I'd make another.

The hat is the Reversible Bucket Hat from youcanmakethis.com. I don't remember for sure, but I think I got the free pattern by signing up for their newsletter. If you can't find it but would like it, email me. It states right on the pattern that it can be shared freely. It was very easy to sew.

By now you're surely wondering what all the waiting was for! Why did I keep you in suspense for a whole weekend?

Because an outfit just isn't right without the full picture (pun intended)! It needs a model, right? Well, here she is... Marie Grace, warm and beautiful in her new coat and hat, and sporting the new bag!

Courtney was... um... ever-so-helpful in dressing Marie Grace and setting up for the photo shoot. ;)

Of course it wouldn't be a proper photo shoot without a picture also of my little assistant, so here she is, all ready for bed last night, after we'd shared some pizza.

It was a little on the dark side for photo taking, and that combined with the green background made for pics that also have a greenish tint, but since I was trying to hurry, and more importantly, since it was St. Patrick's Day, we'll go with the green. ;)