Violet is feeling very pleased with herself as she has a new coat…

Violet is a very particular rabbit from the Luna Lapin books by Sarah Peel of Cool Crafting. I made her a couple of months back having had the book and the supplies for more like a couple of years. When I bought the wool felt for Violet I also bought a fat quarter of a gorgeous purple felt for a coat.

There’s a whole wardrobe of clothes for the Luna Lapins, I’ve already made a flowery dress and a pair of lacy French knickers, today I decided to make the coat. I think it’s the detail that makes these special, fiddly but special…

I only cut this late this morning, by tea time it was made. The felt is a beautiful 100% wool felt from Cool Crafting in a lovely soft purple shade. I traced the pattern pieces from the back of the book and cut them out.

The instructions in the book are pretty straight forward, it’s just that the pieces are small and therefore fiddly. It’s basically a raglan sleeve coat with collar, welt pockets and sleeve tabs.

I knew I had some perfect tiny rounded buttons in my button drawer which I had been earmarking for this coat. They are seriously small, I’m pretty sure they came from my friends mothers button box. When I searched for them I found I actually only had six, whereas the pattern called for eight. I decided to leave six for the double-breasted coat and use two beads for the cuff tabs on the sleeve.

The coat isn’t lined but it does use binding for the neck line and the hem. I had some pretty bias binding with violets on in my haberdashery drawers, it matched well and suited her name.

My sewing machine sewed the wool fine until we got the the really thick bits, such as the collar going over the back pleat, you’re looking at at least five layers of thick wool. It missed stitches when it wasn’t happy. I ended up hand stitching the collar on as it missed so many! Having said that, there’s a lot of top-stitching on this coat and on the whole it coped well.

With the issues I had had with thickness versus machine, I wasn’t sure how it would cope with buttonholes, it even crossed my mind to leave them off. However I had a practice with a small button in the guide and a narrower zig-zag stitch and it came out beautifully. I decided to go for it! I made three buttonholes down the centre front, I had a couple of wobbles with the machine, not enough to spoil the buttonholes but enough for me to think I wasn’t going to push my luck with the six buttonholes required for a double breasted coat. I think these are the smallest buttonholes I’ve ever made!

Having only used three buttons down the front I could change the beads on the cuff tabs for buttons.The coat was ready for a try on…

I’m pleased with it, it’s a bit snug in the arms which Violet isn’t too impressed with – I had to use artery forceps to pull her chubby arm through, not very dignified!! All in all it’s come out pretty well, or even well pretty! I love the detail in these clothes, the top-stitching, the welt pockets and the cuff tabs. She just wants a pair of shoes now…