My masterpiece - a coat is finished

I am PROUD to show you my new coat, which I made ALL BY MYSELF!!! I have never sewn lining into anything and I'm not used to sewing with heavy fabrics and there were fortytwo (!) pieces of fabric to put together, but I did it! (Feel a sudden urge to sing the Dora the Explorer song...).

Picture from the sewing magazine where I found the pattern.

Well, here is is, my masterpiece, so far.... :)

 

I can wear it with the collar buttoned up or folded down like this. Works either way!

Here the coat is matched with a scarf and hat I knitted last winter.

Here the coat is buttoned all the way up.

Check out the cute strap at the back.

Isn't the lining fabric lovely crazy?!

Cute vintage buttons I found on Tradera (Swedish E-bay).



Here's a detail I added - pockets! The pattern didn't have any pockets, kind of crazy for a coat not to have pockets. But since there were two pleats on each side in the front I added the pockets from Colette patterns Macaron dress, which was a hit! A detail I skipped was the shoulder flaps, it just didn't feel like me and added bulk on the shoulders and too much work.

It was much easier to sew up the coat than I would have thought. I took my time and saw it as a long-term project and I think that helped.

Bye for now,

Johanna

I love my overlocker! - update on the coat

Slowly but steadily. I'm making progress on my coat. On Wednesday I cut out all the paper pattern pieces and the fabric as well, both the bouclé and the lining. I recently bought a cutting mat and a rotary cutter which makes the cutting part so much faster and easier. Totally recommend getting those!

Yesterday I had a little time and thought I'd overlock the edges of the lining fabric, because it's slippery like h**l and fraying like crazy. But then I thought, jeeze, why do that when I can sew them together right away. So I used my overlocker and sew together all the lining pieces I could, which took, like, no time at all! So, LOVING my overlocker!

I feels like it won't be so hard to make this coat after all. :) Well, we'll see what I think when it's time for button holes and what not...

Bye for now,

Johanna

Coat info

Here's some more info about the coat I'm going to make. The pattern is from the Swedish sewing magazine Sömnadsmagasin issue nr 11/2011. It's a plus size pattern and making size EU46.

Here are the fabrics I will use. It's the fantastic polar fleece/bouclé in petrol/teal (though it looks more like blue in the photos) and some cheap satin fabric for lining.

Here's a close-up of the bouclé side:

 I hope my coat will be great and I feel positive about the project, even though I'm totally terrified of sewing in satin and putting in a lining, two things I've never ever done... Well, let's just see how it goes, I'm in no hurry, I probably won't need the coat until 2-4 weeks from now (yep, that's the climate in Sweden for you...).

Bye for now (but back soon with a post about my party dress),

Johanna

Coat prep

I've started work on my coat-to-be. And one of the first things to do is to trace the pattern pieces onto pattern paper. It's just that the pattern I've chosen is from a sewing magazine, which means I have to deal with this...

I have to find all of the pattern pieces below on that big sheet of paper above... 20 pattern pieces...

Wish me luck!

Bye for now,

Johanna