Take some vintage inspiration...

Add a favourite Oliver and S pattern from Little Things to Sew...

And a $15 (!) piece of wool and cashmere that I picked up at Fabricabrac...

Spend one evening thinking and cutting and another evening sewing...

And Madeleine gets a new cape!

This remix was a simple one. I assembled the cape exactly as the original instructions described and just made a few easy changes

• I added 2.5 inches to each centre front panel, to make it double breasted.
• I added 3 inches to the length of the cape. (Madeleine is tall and I wanted to get at least 2 winters out of this cape)
  
• I drafted up a collar that sat just short of the centre front. I traced off a collar that I liked from a dress she has and altered it to fit the cape using this technique. I attached the collar in the same way as the book suggests you attach the hood.
  
• I drafted up some flaps for the slits. The vintage parenthesis shape was irresistible! I basted them to the back part of the split before I stitched the outer cape and lining together and then top stitched the pockets in exactly the same way as the book describes.
  

Madeleine loves this cape. She feels so glamorous wearing it. She hasn't told me that, but I can tell by the way she walks when she wears it! I usually have to fight with my shorts and T shirt loving girl to take a jumper (pullover) to school on cold days. Now I can't convince her to leave her cape behind!

My only regret is that I didn't have enough of the beautiful wool and cashmere fabric to make it in my size instead!

We are very excited to let you know about our first Sew Together Guest Series - My Best Friend.

Beginning in August we have asked a collection of our blogging friends to tell us about their best friend in the sewing world. It might be a pattern, a tool, a technique, a blog, a hint or a person who inspires them to sew. We would love to see what motivates other bloggers - what has made them into the crafty person they are today and encourages them to continue to build their skills and enjoy their sewing. They will share with us why they love their best friend so much, and how they use it. They are also going to show us some of the projects their best friends has inspired.

We are very excited about everyone who is contributing to this series. There will be posts from people you already know and love, but we also hope to introduce you to others who you may not have met. They all have a few things in common - they sew beautifully, they are enthusiastic about what they do and they all have fabulous blogs. One exception is our Mum. She is not a blogger but her sewing skills and enthusiasm more than make up for it! We are so excited that she is going to do a guest post for us.

In finding out about other people's best friends, we hope we can all make some new friends. Those friends may be new blogs to read or new resources to try out for ourselves.

And in the spirit of friendship...
If you have a best friend in the sewing world and would like to share it with our readers feel free to let us know about it in an email via our Contact Us Page. We have a few places left in our schedule and we would love you to contribute!

We would love you to grab a button for your blog and share the news. You can find it in our side bar.

The series starts on 5th August. We can't wait!

Later in the month we are participating in a series called "Skirting the issue" organised by the lovely Liz and Elizabeth from Simple Simon and co and Project Run and Play. During the month of July they have 40 (!) bloggers contributing a tutorial for a child's skirt to this series. So if you ever want to make a girl's skirt these blogs will be the places to go!! Far more importantly the purpose of this series is to to make and donate handmade skirts to girls of all ages who are currently in the foster care system. They are aiming for 100 skirts by the end of July. I have a feeling they will well and truly surpass this target. They already have over 50 skirts donated. You can check them all out at the Skirting the issue Flickr Pool.

We will be the last bloggers to contribute their tutorial to the whole series so we are going to have to come up with something quite original!!! In the mean time, if you are looking for some inspiration, here are some other skirt tutorials you can find on our blog:

I hope this series is incredibly successful. It is great to see the sewing community working together to help those in need.

Watch out for our tutorial on Simple Simon and co on the 30th of July.

Have you been reading the recent series on Whip up? I have really enjoyed this interesting collection of posts about Creativity - creativity and health, creativity and business, creativity and parenting and creativity and process.

I loved Kathreen's post today:

"Being creative is not about skills – it is a state of being, a way of living. It is about process and thoughtfulness and slowing down of life. It is about appreciating the small things, not getting hung up about money and a bigger house, and more appliances and a new car – it is about shopping at the farmers markets, making your own bread, sketching and gardening and baking with your kids — and hand sewing the binding."

Writing this post for the series gave me an opportunity to think about some of my own reasons for trying to live a creative life. Being creative gives me a greater sense of well being. Sewing with the Flow looks at why that might be.

I'd love to hear what you think...

Why do you create?

Are there particular projects that give you a greater sense of fulfillment than others?

Does creating improve your mental health?