I have spent a fair bit of time trying to identify the colour of this outfit and finally worked out that it was “powder blue” or “#BECFDD” according to the Australian Standard. The fabric was given to me by Sarah and is a gorgeous wool crepe which we think dates back to the 1980s.

The trousers are Ralph Pink Coco trousers, which I’ve made several times before, but this brown pair is my absolute favourite. I also acquired a new dress form from Sarah, with legs! Sarah didn’t find her very useful because her shape doesn’t conform to the norm (or something like that), but she’s really close to my measurements. When I asked Sarah if she had a name she said “Sue because her body is just like yours”, oh, I shall just call her “dummy” then!

I popped the trousers on her and could immediately see a problem. I had felt something a bit odd at the back but couldn’t see what it was. This showed me immediately that I needed to take a wedge out of the back.

A bit of unpicking and resewing later and this is how they look – a perfect fit!

I also made a couple of wraps/jackets/cover-ups. I’m not sure what to call these. The smaller one is modelled on a fox fur that I inherited from Mark’s mother and which has the most beautiful shape.

We used the rub-off method to copy the fur and then tweaked the pattern a bit.

This outfit has been dragged around in the car as I took it down to Tom’s wedding to wear to the post wedding day lunch, and hence the rumpled look.  We added four radiating darts at the neckline which really helped it sit properly, and self-lined the wrap.

The next time I saw Sarah, she’d been playing with the pattern, effectively growing it into a cape. This is a gorgeous thing and has a swirly effect if I move suddenly.

It looks really interesting with the shorter wrap laid over the top. I feel that it becomes even more cape-like. Rather Sherlock Holmes-ish.

I then decided that I wanted a version from patterned fabric and found this lovely cotton from Knitwit. This cape takes 3m of fabric when self-lined, so it’s quite a good stashbuster. I think this might be my favourite one.

The pattern piece is so large that I had to lay it on the crossgrain. This is no problem for a plain fabric, but on the cotton the pattern is running horizontally instead of vertically.

It also looks nice with the blue wrap laid over the top, but now I’ve seen these photographs, I think I prefer it without. Apart from the trousers and wraps, I also made a cream linen knit top using the Atelier Scammit Stockholm blouse pattern that I’ve made before in black. The fabric came from Knitwit and was massively reduced because it was allegedly full of flaws. I bought five metres and have made a couple of things with it and have yet to find a flaw. Anyway, I’m not sure what went wrong because the bust darts were too low and the body was too big. Some alterations were required. The bell sleeves are nice, but this fabric is quite difficult to iron due to the linen content. I think it might need to be starched lightly.

The above photo shows the shoulder darts, and below the neck darts.

It also looks nice belted at the front with the back flowing free.

So there are lots of variations with this outfit and each piece can be teamed with lots of other pieces in my wardrobe. I feel as though these will be useful as the weather cools off, and I can always put a jumper on underneath them for extra warmth.

Whilst I was trying to decide what to call this shade of blue, I came across lots of trivia associated with blue and thought I’d put the more interesting ones here:

• Mosquitos are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color. This is not good news!
• “There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” — Vincent Van Gogh. There’s definitely a bit of yellow in this blue.
• Powder blue is often used in products to promote cleanliness and purity.