An Azure Blue Cloak

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Click to enlarge picture.
This is a closeup of the hood itself, with the lining, along with the arm slits.

Click to enlarge picture.
Here you can get a good impression of the lining and how it looks against the azure wool. You can also see the edgestitching along the edge of the cloak.

McCalls M8936 was used for the cloak in general. It's one of their "Easy" patterns and definitely lives up to the name. I made some modifications, though. First, I used washed teal coat-weight wool. Washing the wool made it fluffier and denser, felting it and ensuring that the garment will be at least a little washable.

My next modification was cutting a full lining from a cutout velveteen fabric. The cutout velvet was a sort of lace effect that looks very fetching against the wool. The pattern allows for a hood lining, but the entire cloak got lined instead.

I sewed the hood and the body of the cloak with their linings in two separate pieces in the standard way of sewing the linings and fashion fabric inside out, then turning them and edgestitching. The hood's outer fabric was sewn to the body, then the lining whipstitched down. The whole thing was then stitched along the edge. I had to make modifications to the hood's pattern piece too, to account for the full lining.

The cloak clasp, like just about all of my cloak clasps, comes from Grannd Garb which has some great deals on, among other things, the clasps, aiglets for the ends of your laces, and tons of other good costuming stuff. The fabric came from Joann's on sale (the wool for $5/yd on summer closeout, the black velveteen for $2/yd).

All in all, it's a graceful, wonderfully warm cloak. Definitely suggest this one, whether you use the pattern as given or make the modifications I've suggested. The whole thing took one day to fix up (and I'm not that fast a seamstress).