Getting a rave outfit together is often times the most challenging part of planning the experience, for me at least.  Some things you always need to consider are: weather, the commute, is it a holiday?? , and the venue.  While pondering all these factors for Countdown 2017 I discovered I had a few major needs for my fit that I needed to meet.

1. warmth–  with this being my third Countdown I knew what to expect.  I froze to near death at my first, and spent almost the entirety of last year in some too thin sweats and the sweatshirt I bought the previous year.
2. hood– last year it rained and while I can get my dreads wet, I prefer not to unless I can blow-dry them immediately
3. New Years Eve– me being me and Countdown being a countdown into the new year, of course I knew it was going to be expected of me to go BIG

Rave day was Saturday; I started this on Tuesday.  I started by taking my measurements and drafting a front and back jacket piece.  I have made a mens coat before, and I wanted it to fit a little big- these are my reasons for choosing mens over womens pattern piece.  Then I cut out a muslin sample of these pieces and fit them to my Singer adjustable body form which I have set to my measurements.  I fit the garment to my liking and drew directly on the muslin my new sew lines.

Drafting the sleeves– This is the part I was most anxious for.  To draft the sleeve I measured the diameter of the armhole of the muslin sample to figure out how big I needed the cap of my sleeve to be.  I then measured my arm- I placed the tip of the tape at my shoulder tip and followed along down my arm and around my bent elbow to my wrist.  With these measurements I winged it by drawing a sleeve I was hoping would fit.  After I cut out the sleeve in muslin I fit it to the sample jacket I had and thankfully the cap did fit.  The sleeve itself was a little tight and a few inches too short, but those were easy fixes…widen and elongate!

The last thing to do was get a hood pattern piece.  I had never sewn in a hood but it was necessary and I was excited.  A quick google search showed me what a hood pattern piece looked like and I figured I could wing it from there.  I measured the neckline of the sample jacket and went to work drawing up a hood.  When I initially sewed it in it fit nicely at the neckline, but wasn’t as bulky of a hood as I had wanted.  I expected this would be the case because I didn’t know what the pattern piece of the hood style that I wanted would look like. Again such an easy fix.

Day 2 of working on my fur:

I cut out the faux fur fabric (face down) and sewed up the garment.  I got this fabric 40% off thankfully because it is not cheap.  Almost everything fit perfectly.  I had to bring out my shears and trim a few things here and there but overall it fit well.  I impressed the hell out of myself with the hood, it is exactly what I wanted.  

Day 3 of working on my fur:

I cut out the lining which I think is normally any type of silky material but that would for sure not keep more warm so I went with something a little thicker.  I used a nice crème colored fleece that was also on sale which matched beautifully.  I sewed it up the exact same way I did the fur the day before.

Day 4 of working on my fur:

Time to sew in the lining and finish the raw seams.  This took time and precision.  I laid the lining into the coat WRONG sides together ( exactly like it would be worn) and began to hand stitch the seam from hoods together.  Then I sewed the necklines together, then the arm holes at the shoulder and continued working my way down to the side seam.  This step took a little longer than I expected it to so I was still working until the morning of rave day…. but when am I not.

Day 5:

The morning of rave day I turned back the center fronts and hand stitched them 1 1/2 inches.  I carried that up into the hood for a nice clean edge.  Once done with the jacket I decided it needed one more thing.  A POCKET!! I hate carrying my stuff in fanny pack because when I went to jump and head bang I don’t like it bouncing there on my body, and I’d rather not put my stuff in someone’s backpack because chances are I’m never going to take a turn holding it.  LOL.  I arbitrarily measured my phone and the girth of some tampons and my portable charger and cut out a piece of fur big enough to hold it all.  A whip stitch got that pocket to where it needed to be, and it held up all night.

Believe it or not, she was not that hard to make.  I got many many compliments on it, one girl even asked for a photo shoot in it (which I allowed of course).   I plan on making  more to have available in my online shop I’ll be opening early next year.