might work on a trim that I wasn’t happy with once it was done,” Sutera says. “I knew once I put the trim on it would have to work.” The first few times she wore the coat, Sutera was pleasantly surprised when complete strangers stopped her to comment on their admiration for the coat. They were surprised when they learned about her material source. The first time someone stopped Sutera, she didn’t think much of it. When it kept happening she realized her decision to use the blanket to make a coat was a shrewd one. “I heard many comments from people about having a keepsake they thought would work for a similar project,” Sutera says. “I’m very pleased with how the coat turned out and to know that I was able to repurpose a keepsake for a new purpose.” Although the coat lining is a lightweight material and there’s no other insulating fabric between it and the wool coat, Sutera found that the heavy duty wool keeps frigid air at bay. She is also happy that the blanket hasn’t proven to be “itchy.” This isn’t the first item Sutera has repurposed or salvaged for practical use. Numerous leftover material bundles are found in her sewing cabinet. It’s possible that she’ll tackle another military blanket this spring to see what meaningful piece she can create. “One of my cousins lived close to my stepdad and I sent her pictures of the coat once it was done,” Sutera says. “She thought it was very cool and mentioned that she has her father’s Navy blanket. The word Navy is woven into the blanket. When I visit her later this year we’ll talk about we might be able to repurpose it.” Sutera estimates that she spent some 10 hours creating her coat. Since her sewing was done in multiple spurts of time over several weeks she can’t say for certain how long it took. “When I went to cut into the blanket, I felt a bit of a twinge,” she says. “This was something special to my stepfather and cutting into it was pretty final. But that moment passed and I went ahead with the project.” Sutera says fabric “often speaks to me,” and she relies on that chance inspiration to determine which fabrics to select or how to use one that comes her way. “Sometimes I make my own patterns for a project,” she says. “That all depends on what strikes me at the time. I’ve repurposed items like t-shirts, which have a surprising amount of material in them. I’ve also made numerous items out of the ties that belonged to my first husband. Once he passed away I couldn’t part with the colorful ties, and he had a lot of them! My experience has been that using keepsake items for these kinds of projects is practical and brings some healing, too.” Sutera’s latest inspirations are the fabric mosaic projects she found at a craft show in Missouri. Scrap fabrics would be ideal for creating a mosaic. Sutera was taken aback at the $15,000 price tag on some of the items. “I have to wonder how many the woman sells,” Sutera says. “But I know I have little baggies of fabric scraps all over my sewing room. I’ll have to contemplate how I might use them and do some research and sewing tests to learn how to put something like that together.” As for her wool coat, Sutera doesn’t think she would change anything about the project that’s been garnering so much attention. “I enjoy the challenge of determining what I can do with an item,” she says. “I take a defeat once in a while when things don’t turn out as I expected. I have a fairly new sewing machine, but it doesn’t have a lot of fancy features. The biggest challenge is looking at something and envisioning what it could become.” vBy Loretta Sorensen ring! Start planning this years’ summer projects! hink Sp T NATURESCAPING DESIGNS ( LANDSCAPING | PROPERTY CARE | HOLIDAY DECORATING ) CALL US TODAY 605.661.1205 NATURESCAPINGDESIGNS.COM LAURAWNSD@GMAIL.COM HERVOICEvMARCH/APRIL 2017v15