Keeping warm...
Feb. 7th, 2007 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahmichelefMy new coat arrived last Thursday. It's all shiny and black and lined with a bright royal blue (much bluer than it looked on the website). And it's hellawarm. It has stood up to the -20F windchills that we've been having quite nicely. If you need a new coat, seriously look at something with Primaloft from Lands' End - I could wad this thing into a 6" ball. M's comment when I got it out was, "It looks REALLY thin!" And it is, it's really thin. And really warm.
But...
But...
I had the thing less than 48 hours when it had a run-in with the hot exhaust pipe on the snowblower (Saturday morning). My new gloves took the brunt of the melting, but a square about 1.5" on a side of the left sleeve was damaged, too. And I was pissed. Oh, how was I pissed. I ranted and raved about being stupid. (And taught TRex a new word - stupid - in the process. I think we've managed to teach her that "stupid" is not a nice thing to call someone, but Monday night she was still proudly declaring, "Mama stupid!") Once I'd calmed down, I realized that I could patch it pretty easily - the trick would be to find a fabric that would blend in with the jacket. (The gloves were a total loss, but that wasn't as big a deal - they only cost ten bucks.)
So yesterday I went to JoAnn's and managed, with lots of digging, to find some scary polyester fabric that is basically the same "shade" of black as the jacket. (Yes, there are shades of black. I haven't managed to convince many people of this, but there are.) Not only that, it's pretty much got the same sheen as well. Yay, first step taken care of! (At the same time, I stopped at Burlington Coat Factory, which is next door to JoAnn's, and replaced the gloves with some plain black ones with fake-fur cuffs. They're very fun.) Yesterday evening I cut a patch and stitched it down. The color match really is quite good, as is the sheen. I was very careful to stitch the patch just to the outer shell, trying to snag as little of the insulation as possible. I still ended up pulling it a bit, but not too much. A plain patch-job would have been pretty obvious, though, because the jacket is quilted. So I followed the quilting lines as well, and the line of the seam. I think it came out pretty well:
This morning in the car, M asked me "Where's the repair?" I held up my arm for him to see and he said he couldn't tell. I think he was saying that to make me feel better, though. ;^)
So yesterday I went to JoAnn's and managed, with lots of digging, to find some scary polyester fabric that is basically the same "shade" of black as the jacket. (Yes, there are shades of black. I haven't managed to convince many people of this, but there are.) Not only that, it's pretty much got the same sheen as well. Yay, first step taken care of! (At the same time, I stopped at Burlington Coat Factory, which is next door to JoAnn's, and replaced the gloves with some plain black ones with fake-fur cuffs. They're very fun.) Yesterday evening I cut a patch and stitched it down. The color match really is quite good, as is the sheen. I was very careful to stitch the patch just to the outer shell, trying to snag as little of the insulation as possible. I still ended up pulling it a bit, but not too much. A plain patch-job would have been pretty obvious, though, because the jacket is quilted. So I followed the quilting lines as well, and the line of the seam. I think it came out pretty well:
This morning in the car, M asked me "Where's the repair?" I held up my arm for him to see and he said he couldn't tell. I think he was saying that to make me feel better, though. ;^)
