Getting the blues: part 1

Capes and ponchos have been big news this past season, but as much as I like their looks, I haven’t found a way to work them into my wardrobe. A ridiculously long time ago, inspired by a particular Viktor & Rolf* collection when they used an eyecatching shade of cobalt blue, I made this simple poncho out of a wool fabric.

I also made a mini skirt in the same fabric but goodness knows what’s happened to that. I think I decided I would be unlikely to ever wear that shade of blue and gave it to an op shop. And so of course now this is practically my favourite colour. Anyway, I was talking about this poncho, wasn’t I… Despite loving the colour it has been tricky to wear, because it’s either too cold to wear as an outer garment (but bunches up bulkily when I wear a coat over the top) or is too warm and then I have to take it off and the neck messes up my hair (which, of course, looks perfect otherwise, haha). So for a while I’ve been thinking I should alter it somehow, but suffered from having too many ideas and never got around to actually doing anything.
Finally, in a fit of activity, I cut off the offending neck a few days ago, after several gutwrenching hours of pondering whether I would live to regret it.

Having gone that far I got a bit cocky and decided to create sleeves so that I can actually move my arms without dragging the fabric through things like my lunch, bits of random paper with extremely important information on them, heavy machinery (well, a laptop keyboard, anyway) etc etc.

I tried it on and marked one sleeve with pins….

And then cut both sleeves…

And here’s where this post ends abruptly because, thanks to having a zillion other things I’m meant to be doing and also thanks to Melbourne’s unseasonal warm snap (it’s been about 20 degrees for the past few days! The daffodils are out! I didn’t feel guilty about putting Suki out to stay the night in her cat palace so I could get some uninterrupted sleep!) I am yet to complete this project. I’ll be back with the end result in a few days, unless something else manages to distract me (probability of this is extremely high).

*The only time I ever saw my ex cry was at an exhibition of Viktor & Rolf’s work, because he was so moved by their creations. I still can’t work out whether that is endearingly amusing or just plain scary.