The elves crept in softly through the cat flap...

     Silently the cat flap lifted, and a small elfin face appeared. He looked anxiously about the kitchen, hoping that neither of the household's cats were on patrol. Spotting a striped tail drapped over the edge of the basket, he held his breath, preparing himself for a quick get away. It didn't move.
   Letting out a sigh, the elf stepped to the side and let a smaller elf climb into the room. Together they crept around the edge of the kitchen, being careful to stay out of the moonlight which streamed through the window and pooled over the tiled floor. The kitchen door had been left slightly ajar; just wide enough for an elf. Squeezing through, the closed the door after them with a sigh of relief.
    "She should have those cats tied up," moaned the first elf, as he clambered up on the dining table. "Occupational hazard, I'd call it."

    "Comes with the job," said the second, sounding as he'd heard the complaint numerous times before. "You know its worth the effort. Look at that cake!"
    They both stared at the cake which had been left out on the middle of the dining table for a moment before tucking in. The icing was only just set, and as they bit in, it slowly oozed over the edges. Their hunger temporarily slated, they wiped their hands on the cloth thoughtfully provided, and looked across at the sewing left out for them

Quickly they began to sew the back of the upper collar to the undercollar. Stitch by stitch, feeling and shaping the fabric in their little hands.

Until finally, it was complete and they viewed it with the satisfaction of a job well done.
Cutting a length of thread, the other elf ran wax along it, protecting the thread with the hopes of preventing knots. Not that they weren't good at undoing knots, but they had a lot to do before daybreak.

They finished the front edging with tiny stitches a quarter of an inch from the edge, all the time assuring that the facing didn't show.

Little scraps of material littered the floor, and not wanting to be thought wasteful, the elves selected the biggest pieces and used them to make beautiful covered buttons.

     They stitched the upper and slower sleeves together and gathering the upper edge, the tacked the sleeves into position before machine sewing them in place.

Finally as the rising sun crept over the horizon, and the gentle sound of the bird's chorus filtered through into the house, the elves began to tack the lining into place, securing it around the arm holes, and along the facing ready to be handsewn.

Packing everything away, they crept back into the kitchen. The cats tail didn't even so much as flicker as they left the house.

The house was still again, waiting for the owners to wake up and for a little girl to toddle down the stairs, dolly in hand, eagerly looking forward to the day her new coat would be finished and she could twirl around to her heart's content.

Starting the lining...

The collar is slowly getting there. Each time I look on another sewing bloggers website, they astound me with how quick they can dash out another outfit. I do hope that you aren't finding my progress too slow in comparison. On the upside, at least you get to see a lot of steps in the progress!

You can see in the photo above that there is only a tiny bit not sewn. Hand sewing definitely takes a long time. I think it's less stressful in the end, because you only do it the once. Obviously if you are a bit more patient with the sewing machine you might only have to do that once, but well, that just isn't how I work. Perhaps I do would do better, if I ever took the trouble to use pins. I don't even know where my pin box is anymore. I guess that's an achievement of sorts. Everything you've seen so far has been constructed without pins. I don't even use them to cut out!!!  as

I thought the elves deserved a change from that fiddley collar so I let them have a go at the lining. 

I'm glad that I used the fabrics this way around, as I think from this distant, the lining looks very busy and would have been overpowering as a outer fabric. I think the next step should be to add the sleeves. Unfortunately I had yet another mistake whilst cutting out. (No doubt some of you are thinking ... should have used pins! but that wasn't the problem.) With the wadding making the material thick I decided to cut the pieces out one layer at a time, and subsequently managed to cut out two left sleeves! Argh! I now need to get those elves to quilt a bit more material as I've run out....

These are the buns I used to tempt the elves last night. They are raisin and cinnamon with a heavy dusting of caster sugar. My husband, Ellie and I ate them fresh from the oven and they were lovely and hot.

I thought you guys might be interested in sewing who the end product is going to. This is Ellie. She is two, and alternates between being a little devil, and well, I won't say angel, but fairly close to it.

I've also been thinking about my next project, did I mention before about how long I spend daydreaming about making things.... This one needs to be for Nancy just in case she thinks she's been missed out. I'm not going to make a coat, as knowing my luck, she'll have grown out of it before I even finish it! I'm thinking about dungarees and a little blouse. The last set of dungarees I made, I didn't bother with bottom fastening for an easy change. Having wiggled her in and out of them for the last three months though I'm beginning to think that might have been a design fault. I don't want to use those horrible hammer on poppers (has anyone ever got those things to stay on!) , and I've never had any luck with the sew on strip poppers, so I'm going to need to think of a more enterprising way of allowing bum access. (Sounds terrible...)