Lorenzo (17) wanted to go big or go home I guess. He hasn’t really ever sewn anything before and never operated the serger until he sat down to make this coat. He must be like his mama in that regard. I’d never sewn a line in my life, but when I had kids, I suddenly wanted to know how to sew cloth diapers. So, my mom sat me down and I learned to sew to make cloth diapers. The rest is history and many machines and many hundreds (okay probably more like thousands!) of yards of fabric later I love sewing and sew most every day.

Lorenzo spent the better part of two months gathering sweaters to make himself a Katwise coat.  We hit thrift stores. Including once when we went to a place where generally folks who are unemployed go, because the items are only .25 each. The gal asked if he was employed, nope. He said he wasn’t lying…he IS unemployed. (Actually, anyone can shop there….but it was pretty funny at the time!)

He spent just under $40 on sweaters (25 of them @@) but didn’t use them all (I think he only used 18? of them and then two cut up, but weren’t used after all), so he’ll have some for future projects as well as he is going to make some arm warmers from the Katwise pattern.

He did 90-95% of the serger work himself. I did do some finish machine sewing work at the end as he doesn’t know how to use a sewing machine and at that point, it was easier for me to do those parts. Learning to sew on an almost finished gargantuan garment…not what mom thought of as fun times. I gave ideas on how to ‘fix’ some problems he encountered along the way, and then he implemented. I did help with the final planning of the hood portion, as again, that was a little beyond his ability, but he knew what he wanted.

I think all in all, he spent about 12-14 hours of active cutting and sewing time on the coat. I spent about 2 hrs working with him actively trying on, showing him where to make adjustments and then the few sewing bits I did.

He’d still like to add pockets, but hasn’t yet. He’s worn it quite a few times already, and is going to make another one. Already has his new pile of sweaters started!!

If you’ve been following me, I am working on 52 projects in 52 weeks in 2014. I am counting this as a ‘project’ though I didn’t do a ton of sewing, it was a lot of consulting/discussion/work and was definitely a ‘project’ for me too!

We can ‘tic’ the Home-Ec box for homeschooling, right? Done!