Jacket progress and topstitching love

I love topstitching. Is there any other little detail you can add that punches so much class with so little effort? For the coat, which I'm about half way done with now, I'm topstitching the black denim with green. Actually two slightly different green threads, giving just a slight bit of extra depth and varigation. These are two of the strips that get cut into belt loops - don't they look so finished? I love.



It's been a bit of a challenge to relearn how to top stitch now that my new (to me) machines don't have the blindhem foot that I used like mad on my old machine. And, sadly, the motor on old machine is dying so using it was only an option if I wanted to handcrank every single stitch. So learning how to topstitch using the zigzag foot to keep me on track was a bit of a lesson in creative make-do-manship. And it worked, for the most part. And I realized that in doing this I've gotten better at really controlling my machine. Of course, with that lesson learned I'm still going to go shopping for a good topstitching foot just as soon as I can.

The jacket itself is coming along really nicely - thank you all for talking me into the more trendy and fun style! The black denim, now that it's part of a garment and not on the bolt, has a decided motorcycle bad-girl air to it that just works so fantastically well with the slightly sweet empire waist and candy green topstitching. Such fun juxtaposition.

Also, thank you for the kind words about the paper - it's just been one of those semesters where writer's block has come to camp out and naturally I've got a ton of papers still due. Sigh. Happily the paper I was whining about is actually due NEXT week, not this. Yeah, slight error with my dayplanner there. But a happy error! I'm feeling much better about it now. And now I know what to do next time I'm trudging through molasses - make gingerbread! :)