Falling Into Winter Lucille

Falling into Winter, Lucille

A Coat That Captured a Season—and a Memory

Some garments are garments.
Others are stories you wear.

Falling into Winter, Lucille was born from a challenge—but became so much more. Created for the 2023 Threads Challenge, this winter coat captured not only the eye of the judges but also a deeply personal moment in time.

I started with a sketch. A whisper of an idea sparked by one of my favorite times of year—the liminal beauty between autumn and winter. The crispness. The stillness. The quiet flicker of golden leaves making room for snow. I knew I wanted to capture that gentle transition in textile form.

The silhouette is part cape, part coat—lined in satin printed with a sentimental painting titled Birch Trees in Autumn. It wasn’t just any painting. It was created by my little boy, Reese, in 2019, during a Saturday art class we took together. It was our first time taking a painting together. Our only time.  I had decided to gift myself a painting class, but while I waited for it to begin, I remembered how Reese blossomed during the spring while in the hospital for his chemo treatments.  He couldn’t go to school, but Arts for Life came around everyday in which he learned more and expanded his art.  That memory along with the painting class we took together lives inside this garment now, sewn between the seams.

I used a winter white boucle for the body, a cozy mohair knit for the hood lining and cuffs, and quilted silk organza for the inter-structure and support. Embellishments in fall tones—four types of specialty silk blend yarns hand-stitched in leaf-like swirls and French knots for wherever the breeze blows—symbolize the scattered beauty of the season’s end.

A few favorite details:

• The oversized French cuffs, complete with pearl buttons crafted from a vintage belt

• A bulky collar that doubles as a hood in case the snow decides to fall

• Both mine and Reese’s painting was printed on satin for the lining.  His lined the inner fronts of the coat while mine lines the back.  The symbolism here is that I as his mother am in the background to love, teach, and support him as he learns and grows.  His is in the front, because I put his first.  Also, on the inner right side shows his signature and the year.  It is painted in time.
  
  

• A hidden interior pocket, because winter calls for lipstick and warmth
  
  

• A detachable martingale belt, inspired by a scene in a 1954 episode of I Love Lucy—Lucille Ball in her long winter coat with a silver half-belt in back. I never forgot that image.
  
  

What made this project extra special was the freedom I felt to make it for me. It wasn’t a commission. It was a moment to create something meaningful. And when it was chosen as the category winning entry  for Most Holistic Interpretation for the challenge, it felt like a soft affirmation—of story, of memory, and of craftsmanship stitched with love.

I wore it. I won in it. And I remember in it.