Coating Fabric Conundrum

After posting up my Shoutout to Gertie blogpost, I went on the hunt for some wool coating fabric from some online retailers.

I ordered 2 swatches from Fashion Fabrics Club:

Ordered 1 swatch from Gorgeous Fabrics:

And I ordered a whopping 8 fabric swatches from Mood:

What’s crazy is that Mood fabrics’ real color vs. monitor color varied the greatest.  Do you see the ‘black’ coating at the bottom left?  That is supposed to be a lovely, more vibrant shade of green.

I consulted my trusty fabric specialist, Felix (*insert sarcasm here*) and he listened patiently as I talked out which fabrics to narrow down my choice to.  Being a non-expert he did manage to help me think things through and I got my choices narrowed down to three fabrics:

These are all wool coatings.  The grass-green swatch is quite thick and it’s 100% wool, the teal one at is 95% wool and 5% rayon, so it has a pretty drape and the grey-lilac-black swatch is also quite thick but I love tweeds & it’s different. 

A few days later I received Gertie’s Coat pattern (B 5824) in the mail from Butterick, and to my surprise the fabric recommendation was for a light to mid-weight wool coating.  I guess this does make sense as the swing portion of the coat is well… swing.  With a thick wool coating, there wouldn’t be much swing.

So within my three favorites only one remains, the teal wool coating which is quite lovely and has some drape to it.

Now here comes the actual conundrum:  Do I actually buy fabric even though I have some in my stash?!

Major Note:  I’m not certain how much yardage I have in either of these two fabrics.  The Coat calls for a whopping 5 yards.  Now I’m short…. so I don’t think I’ll actually need 5.  (Have to lay out the pattern pieces to test it out.)

I bought this purple & black coating fabric on one of my trips to Washington DC at least one year ago. 

Detail:

At the time I was really into purple (and still am for the most part), but after having it in my stash for so long, it’s lost it’s luster.  You know what I mean?!  Why use something you’ve had sitting around forever when there are new and pretty fabrics to be had.

The second fabric I have in my stash is a blue & white herringbone wool that I got at my local Vogue fabrics:

THis fabric is very light weight, and I feel would be better suited towards, well a suit.  But I prefer tweeds for suits so I’m not certain this would ever become a suit.  At any rate, I could use it for this coat.

I do realize this whole argument sounds very *consumerist* but I’m just not that thrilled anymore with these two fabrics.  And if I’m spending a lot of man-hours making a coat, I want to love it and not hate it the whole time.  I don’t want to think “if only I used that silky teal wool fabric instead.”

Reality: I doubt that I would hate the finished coat & I think I should use the wool coating in my stash just to get it out of my closet.  But I would rather have a bright fun color for the winter and not more black.  What’s a girl to do?!

How do you guys overcome this feeling that new = better and old = boring?  Do you guys just suck it up (like I know I should) and use the stash fabric or would you buy the new teal coating (since you would love it more)?

What should I do?
&
Would you do the same as what you’re telling me to do?  :)

In: Sewing

Blogger for 6 years and counting, I am a passionate creator who loves to tinker.

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