Fabric Score

While picking up some basic bridal satin at my local Fabricland store I saw some fabrics that looked nice. Fabricland is not known for its "nice" fabrics, so I had to check it out. An entire table was labelled as Pink Tartan overstock. Pink Tartan is a Mimram enterprise- the people who brought Club Monaco and Joe Fresh into existence. It looked, felt and smelled like wool and was only $9/m so I purchased 2.5m.
Once it was home, I snipped off a bit and did a burn test. It had difficulty catching fire, smouldered and went out quickly and left a soft ash, no bead. Sounds like wool to me!
On the other hand, a purchase made from a well known US mail order fabric store of 100% Merino knit brought me a synthetic blend. I will still use it, but am disappointed in that one.

Needle felted hat

This is my new hat. It is my first attempt at needle felting. I like it, but keep wondering if I will look back on it one day and cringe at my workmanship.

I eyeballed the design, did the needle felting using fleece from Vogue Fabrics and sewed the hat up.
Afterwards I decided to add some embroidery. This was NOT the correct order to do the embellishment, believe me.
I did a blanket stitch around the top seam of the crown and added some fly stitches to the little trefoil design that goes around the crown.
The hat is a teal boiled wool type fabric (wool/rayon blend) with the underside of the brim in a black/brown faux Persian lamb fabric. The lining is a lightweight polartec fleece.

Pattern is McCalls 3400

Boiled Wool Jacket

Showing the grosgrain facing to stablize the buttonholes.

The fabrics for this jacket were nearly free from Fabricland. The store sells memberships which offer discounts on purchases. They also give you a stamp card and stamp with every purchase. Every $500 worth of stamps gives $20 off of a purchase. I buy a lot of basics for the business there, but I keep the stamp cards for my personal purchases.
The wool was purchased while on sale, then with a members' additional discount, then $20 off. The ribbons had been purchased with a stamp card for another project.
The leather buttons were from a sweater of my dad's. After he died, my mother and I went through his work wordrobe and kept a few things to use as materials (and reminders) before the rest went to Goodwill. I have used the buttons on numerous garments since then.