An Knockoff of an Knockoff

When I first saw Vogue 8776 coming up from Erica’s recent outfit post, I was instantly smitten. I would have normally laughed the pattern off seeing the drawing, but what people made looks so awesome and cool, they totally made me want one! Some of my favorite ones other than Erica’s: GoodbyeValentino, sewstashsew , Misscelliespants, MimiG, Mbaliyethu, closeclosetfile and more (to be honest I havent seen a version I didnt like)!

Unfortunately, this pattern is totally out of print and you can only get the larger sizes online. Sarah’s post had pointed out that this is not very petite friendly, and i noticed that there is a lot more room in the back than my liking. So I decided to just knock this off instead of waiting for a pattern to show up. But when I sat down to draft this, I decided that I like the original inspiration better than the actual pattern:

It was simpler for me to draft and just as cool! So here’s my version:

I would say that my knock off is not perfect – i couldnt quite get the shoulder seam to  sit cleanly. But other than that I am quite happy with my version!!! It took a lot of time for a very simple cape – considering the outer shell is really just two rectangles sewn together (one for the body and one for the collar). But to get that arm hole just right – took me some thinking and thinking and hand sewing. Also, I made this from left over wool from these two projects. I didnt have enough of the camel colored wool to use it for facing as well, so I just said “screw it” and used navy wool for facing – i really like how it looks! almost like i used a double face wool. I had matching navy colored cotton twill for the lining in my stash as well. Yay for a project made from scrapes! At the end I almost had no wool scrapes left.

As expected, arm movement in this cape is quite limited and its actually awkward to put my arm into the pocket (which btw, is nice and deep). If I were to make it again, i would have made the arm hole maybe 3 inches longer towards the front. But its such a “frosty” garment that I highly doubt I would make anything of the similar shape again – no matter how much I like it. Also, I think vogue pattern is very flattering in a different way – its wider but the arm hole & pocket slants in a way that draws the eyes to the waist. The designer version has the arm hole slanted in a different direction, resulting in a slightly different look in the front.

So there you have it, my knock off of Vogue 8776 which is a knock off of high end design. Never in my life would I have imagine that I would wear a cape (always thought they are ridiculous). But here I am… I love sewing!

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!