Color Blocking on the Brain

I can't get this vintage blanket coat/jacket project off my mind, readers, so permit me to brainstorm a bit.

Here are a few of my challenges.  The blanket I'm trying to showcase, the one with the shell pattern, is not large -- it's a fragment really.  There's enough here for two fronts and part of the sleeves or back, maybe the facings, and that's about it.



The hem in my pattern does not run straight across (see below).  The wide border on the blanket, therefore, cannot work at the hem but rather needs to be elsewhere.



I thought about cutting the blanket lengthwise; I could use more of it that way.





I even sketched it. 



But that shell pattern doesn't look so great running vertical.  

So now I'm thinking of having the bold border run across the middle of the coat, with the shells above and an attached piece of the blue blanket below it.



I can change the pockets so that the flaps fall over the blue, like on that Kenzo coat I posted yesterday.  As for the sleeves, I'm not sure how I'll do them; a lot will depend on how much coat I can squeeze out of this blanket fragment. 



I would also like the collar to be made from it as I'm not fond of the look of solid blue lapels.



Michael and I both agree that the blue blanket and the shell-pattern blanket work together better than the shell pattern and the vibrant pine green.  The blue has clearly visible beige threads running through it, giving it a more faded look similar to that of the patterned blanket.  (It's also genuinely faded.)  I will use the green blanket for something else. 



To paraphrase Barbie, colorblocking is hard.

A closing question:  I've already run all my blankets through the dryer with a damp towel for about 40 minutes to kill anything that might have been living in them and to pre-shrink the wool a bit  (the latter probably unnecessary since these old blankets have likely been washed many times before).

The Japanese pattern book suggests very little in the way of interfacing: just the collar and the facings.  Given that the wool is so thick (and I want some drape) is there any reason to interface anything else?  I can see interfacing the hem to stabilize it, and maybe the corners of the pockets, but to interface the fronts, as one would a wool blazer, seems like too much for fabric this heavy.  Thoughts? 

Thank you for allowing to me to get some of these coat issues off my chest, friends.  It looks like November is going to be outerwear month.

Have a great day, everybody!