Tag Archives: Tailoring

Traveller Coat for Winter?

Now that the weather is finally getting warmer, I thought what a good time to share my new Winter coat I made back in February!

I knew I wanted to make a new coat this year as my beloved Honetone coat was really starting to wear out. It was made from pretty cheap fabric from one of the Sew Brum meet ups and there were a couple of things that I didn’t love about it in the end (apart from literal holes in the fabric), like a lack of a full collar – it had lapels but no collar. And the lapels never sat quite right but I’ve learnt more about how to make this happen that I knew then so I was hopeful I could do a good job this time, and get a nice finish!

Also using 100% wool fabric helps with pressing – synthetics do not press as nicely in my experience. The fabric – the wool and the lining – were from Fabric Godmother. I have never been disappointed with the quality of their fabric and since this was a sizeable investment in time, as well as money, I didn’t want to cut any corners.

I used the Bella Loves Patterns Traveller Coat pattern as it had the masculine details and vibe I was looking for in my new coat. It was soooo many pages so I went the extra mile and got it printed at Netprinter (which I think I saw was now closing?!). There are 2 heights for the pattern and since I’m 5’3″ I made the one drafted for exactly my height! I made the size 8 with no fitting changes – since it has a dropped shoulder, I thought that would remove the main place it might look wrong if it didn’t fit properly. Obviously this was a risk since the fabric was expensive and I didn’t want to mess it up.

The pattern calls for a lot of interfacing and I just went for the iron-on style for ease of use and ease of getting hold of it. To help the lapels lay back nicely, I ironed on the interfacing with the lapels in the position they sit in when worn – it was a bit of a head-scratcher to figure out which way that was! I saw this in a Bernadette Banner video from an expert tailor – they talked about holding the fabric in the way you want it to lay when you do pad stitching to attach the interfacing.

Sewing the whole coat from start to finish did take a good while – which was what I wanted to do. This isn’t a quick sew! I started it in January (when I finally got the guts to cut into the fabric) and finished it in February, during a week I had off from work to use up my annual leave. It was nice to spend a good chunk of time working through all the steps.

The pattern calls for quite a bit of top-stitching which helped the fabric to sit flat, since it was quite bulky and spongy in places without it.

I decided to go for a bright yellow contrast lining – because why not! I actually quite enjoy the flash of yellow in the vent as I walk. Speaking of the vent, that was the part of the pattern that was the trickiest for me to understand – I think I was overthinking it. When I actually started to do the steps, it finally started to make sense!

I’m not going to lie, I’m really proud of my coat. I’m glad I invested in good quality fabric and took the time to do everything carefully and I hope it will last me a good few years. I have a bit of each of the fabrics left so hopefully I can do some repairs in the future if I need to. I also feel really cool wearing it. Although I love the warm weather we’re finally getting, I’m also a bit sad that I won’t be able to wear it for a while until it gets cold.

Here are a couple of close-ups of the details on the shoulders and the belt. I really love the epaulettes(?) on the shoulders – I like the little loops they sit through, the buttons, everything!

What’s the most involved garment you’ve ever made? Sometimes it’s nice to take extra time to make something really well finished I think. Obviously quick makes are fun, but slow ones are fun in a different way.

Houndstooth Richmond Blazer

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When I was thinking of making my suit for the Sewcialite Soiree, Nina Lee mentioned that she was releasing a jacket pattern. It was released later than made it possible for using it for that jacket, but I snapped it up as soon as she did release the Richmond, so that I could make a copy of this jacket Claire Foy wore.

I was on the lookout for the right fabric for ages. I eventually settled on this fabric from Minerva Crafts. I also bought the lining from Minerva. The scale of the houndstooth is obviously smaller than on Claire’s jacket but it still kind of works. The fabric is super synthetic, though, so I probably wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone else as it’s difficult to iron into shape.

I made the size 8 and didn’t make any fitting changes as it’s drafted to be a relatively loose fit. The sleeves are a little tighter than I anticipated, though, so I definitely wouldn’t get a thick jumper underneath – not that I was planning on that anyway.

The pattern has 2 welt pockets, with pocket flaps and the instructions were really clear – so if you’ve ever struggled with this before, you won’t struggle with this pattern.

I think if I made another jacket, I would use this pattern rather than the Joe Blazer (which I made for the suit) as I prefer the way it fits. I also made the super wide lapels, which I liked for the suit, but I think I like the lapels on the Richmond better.

It doesn’t look like it, but I have pressed all the seams and the collar but it doesn’t really look like it – this is because of the super synthetic fabric.

I didn’t bother adding buttons or buttonholes as I figured I wouldn’t wear it done up. I might change my mind once I start wearing it though. I think I’d go for black buttons like in the inspiration pic.

I thought about putting some shoulder pads into this jacket to add a bit more structure but the fabric is quite drapey and it’s meant to be a slouchy fit so I decided against it. I do kinda want to make a proper tailored jacket with shoulder pads and stuff one day though.

I’m hoping to get a lot of wear out of this jacket once Spring finally arrives, as an alternative to a jumper or cardigan.

Sewing another jacket has also made me kinda want to make another suit…..

Have you made a jacket/blazer?

5 Things I Learned Making A Coat

My Honetone Coat

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You guys I made a coat! Fair warning there will be a lot of photos in this post because, to be honest, I@m really proud of making a coat – and of the fact that I took my time and made what I hope will be a coat that lasts me for years to come.

I think I mentioned in my planning post for February that the wool I used was from Barry’s in Birmingham at the Sew Brum meet-up. I was very good that day – I intended to buy coat fabric and did! It was a small miracle!

I decided I wanted this coat to be super warm and was therefore thrilled when I saw this weird fleecy fabric on sale as a remnant in my local sewing shop.

It was a bargain and I was pretty sure there would be enough to cut out the main pieces of the coat – I didn’t need to be able to do the facing or all of the pocket pieces.

I didn’t take a photo of the lining fabric before I cut it out but it was this bright blue silky satin type lining from Abakhan. It was really difficult to find a fabric that was suitable as a lining in the right shade of blue that I wanted – I wanted to pick out the blue colour from the wool. I ordered some cupro that looked like it was the right kind of colour but when it arrived it was a much more dull shade of blue so looked bad (though I’m sure I’ll find some use for it in another project). At the same time as I ordered the lining, I ordered heavy-duty iron on interfacing (as I only had medium weight in my stash) and some sew-in canvas. I really wish I’d read all of the supplies needed, though as I discovered I also needed stabilising tape (when I had reached a stage of construction which meant I couldn’t progress without it!).

After cutting out all the pieces – in some cases in multiple fabrics and interfacing – I hand basted the wool pieces to the fleecy underlining layers so I could then treat them as one piece of fabric when it came to constructing the coat. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, to be honest!

I also made sure to mark all of the markings with tailor’s tacks as I knew chalk or anything similar would rub off and so I would lose all those helpful markings. Again it didn’t take as long as I thought to do tailor’s tacks – and it meant my buttons and button holes lined up straight away! I remember seeing Ann on the first series of the Sewing Bee and thinking ‘wow, that looks like a lot of work’ when she was making a jacket and doing tailor’s tacks, but actually they don’t take that long and as long as you don’t accidentally pull them out, they’re a great way to mark fabric that might not take to chalk very well.

I shared the next 2 photos on Instagram but one of the things that drew me to the Honetone Coat pattern (by Marilla Walker) was the pockets. I particularly like the higher up pockets, which are perfect for putting your hands in when it’s cold. (Sorry for the slightly awful photos, they don’t come out well when it’s dark in my sewing space.

The pocket at the bottom came out a little wonky, though I think it looks worse in the picture that in real life. I did construct the big, patch pockets slightly differently from the instruction as with my extra layer of interlining, folding in the edges of the wool would have make the edge of the pocket too bulky I thought, so I stitched the lining to the pocket right sides together, leaving a gap and then turning it right side out, topstitching the hole closed as I stitched the pocket onto the coat. I sort of tried to match the black stripes in the fabric through all of the pockets, and it’s a miracle that worked as well as it did as I didn’t think about it when cutting out!

This is the hair canvas, which you tailors baste on to the inside of the coat, around the back of the neck and on both shoulder fronts. I had seen this technique and the hair canvas inside my dad’s jacket which I refashioned into a jacket for me – though the canvas had started to disintegrate so wasn’t really re-usable. But I enjoyed using this technique and material, having not done any proper tailoring before. I’m really glad I had the interlining layer, though, as I don’t know how I would have stitched it on to just the wool without the stiches showing through to the right side – that still happened a couple of times and I had a whole layer in between!

And here is the stabilising tape which I forgot about! The shoulder seams and back neckline are stabilised (and strengthened), as is the line where the facing folds back to form the lapel – this is a super helpful detail when pressing the lapels!

Those are all the in-progress photos I took, so now onto the endless photos of the finished coat 😀

I made the size 2 and didn’t make any adjustments to the fit. There is a lot of ease built into the pattern so I chose the size based on my bust measurement – if I had chosen by my waist/hips then I would have one up a size, which I might do if I make this pattern again (probably in the jacket version).

I really like the shape of the Honetone from the back – I love how it’s cocoon-y.

One major advantage of this pattern is the dropped sleeve, which means you don’t have to try to set in a sleeve, which would definitely be tricky in this wool with the fleece underlining.

I did manage to get one or two photos of the bright blue lining. I wanted a plain lining because of the slight pattern in the wool – I didn’t want 2 patterns that might clash. The lining fabric is the slipperiest fabric I’ve ever sewn with and it was probably the hardest thing about making the coat – my cutting out was so inaccurate to begin with that I was then flighting a losing battle. I think using pattern weights and a rotary cutter would have helped and I think there are things like starch sprays or something to make slippery farbrics more stable while you sew them.

I definitely learnt quite a few new things making this coat, including bound buttonholes. There are loads of tutorials on Youtube for how to make them and I practiced several times before doing it for real – it’s pretty scary when you cut the hole and know you can’t go back if things go wrong!

Here’s a close-up of the hand pocket, which involves cutting a hole in the coat front, then the pocket itself is slotted in at the back. That was even scarier than cutting a slit for a buttonhole – cutting a huge square out of the coat fronts, when you don’t have enough fabric to recut them if things go wrong, is terrifying!

I really can’t believe these vintage buttons, which I picked up at a local antiques market. They’ve been in my stash for quite a while, waiting for the perfect project, and I couldn’t believe how well the bright blue is matched in the wool and the buttons. And I like that they’re quite big, it fits with the scale of the coat I think.

Although my face, below, looks a little unimpressed, I really can’t recommend this pattern highly enough for a first proper coat with some tailoring techniques, but without some of the trickier things like set in sleeves or a full collar. The instructions – as with all Marilla Walker’s instructions – are really clear and easy to follow. There wasn’t a single time where I didn’t understand the instructions – the only times I got a little confused was when I didn’t read them properly and assumed what I thought they said instead of what was actually written.

Most of my photos were taken after the crazy snow we had in the UK had melted, but I did try to take some photos in the snow as I thought they would look suitably Wintery to show off my first Winter coat. A couple of them came out okay…….

……but most of them looked like this and made me look like some weird kind of alien with no nose! And this is after I reduced the brightness considerably!

And taking photos when it was actually snowing wasn’t a particularly good idea!

Even on the third photoshoot, though, somehow I still managed to take this photo! You. are. welcome.

I really enjoyed taking my time over a larger project – it took me basically the whole of February, working weekends and some evenings to get it made, in time for the beast from the east! I’ve got some other more involved projects planned for the year, like making jeans and a bag and I’m now tempted to make another coat/jacket. Apart from trousers (and maybe a few more shirts/tops) my wardobe is getting as full as it needs to be, so to still keep sewing without making things for the sake of it, I like the idea of making some more involved projects.

Refashioners: making a suit…..into a suit

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As I mentioned in my October makes post, one of the makes that took up quite a lot of time was my suit refashion, which is my entry for the Refashioners 2017. I joined in 2 years ago and refashioned 2 men’s shirts (1 & 2) and wanted to join in last year but family events took over and I didn’t get around to it, so I was very keen to take part this year. When I was at home in August, I suddenly had the thought that it would be nice to use one of my dad’s suits rather than a random suit from a charity shop (though perhaps I would have been more adventurous if the suit had been more anonymous?!) so I asked my mum if she still had any of my dad’s suits (he was in a care home at this point). She had one still in the wardrobe – she had got rid of most of them quite a few years ago, when he stopped having a job that required wearing a suit every day. It was a St Micheal’s one (which I think is a Marks and Spencers brand) and it was apparently made in Israel.

Although my Dad had been ill for a long time – he had a rare degenerative brain disease called Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD) for quite a few years, I obviously did not think that by the time I refashioned the suit he would no longer be with us. So this refashion became even more poignant to me than it would have been. I’m a little sad that he won’t see me wearing his suit, but c’est la vie.

My Dad wasn’t a huge man, so I was a little shocked by just how big the suit was on me – though I am small I suppose.

The first thing I did was to unpick the vast majority of the seams – and man did it take a long time! It was my occupation while watching TV in the evenings for about 2 weeks. I even took a picture of all the thread I removed (with pin cushion for scale)!

And this is the pile of pieces.

I unpicked everything from the trousers – side seams, inner leg seams, the fly, the zip and the waist band. I even managed to pry off the metal hook above the zip to use again later. The only things I left were the pockets and I wanted to use them in the new trousers. With the jacket I similarly unpicked everything – I removed the lining, the took the sleeves off both lining and shell, unpicking the underarm seam; I unpicked the side seams of both lining and shell; the shoulder seams; and I unpicked all parts of the collar. I also removed the shoulder pads and removable canvas around the shoulders – most of the interfacing and the like I left as I was remaking a jacket, so it saved me a job!

And this is the finished suit! I’m pretty pleased if I’m being totally honest. And I think I’ve been bitten a bit by a tailoring bug and would like to make a proper jacket from scratch to see all the processes I was able to skip by virtue of them already being done.

I thought I would go into detail about the trousers first, then the jacket, as that’s the order I re-made the suit in.

I used the Simplicity 1696 pattern as I knew I would be able to just about get them to fit me as I have made the pattern once before. As you can see below, I did extend them a little higher in the waist as I wanted to keep the full pockets, and although the trousers were quite big on me, I couldn’t bring the pattern piece to the top of the original trousers as the crotch curve wouldn’t have fit. After taking so much off the legs of the pattern the last time, I decided to narrow the legs at the pattern stage – though I ended up taking them in too much, so I had to reduce the seam allowance to 0.5cm to make them not skin tight!

I made the size 14 as before, and did quite a bit of fiddling with the crotch curve. I took 4cm in total off the back seam, including the waistband (which is the original waistband of the trousers, and the original waistband facing) and had to take 2cm off both crotch curves (front and back) – I think that’s what they’re called? I kept basting the seams, then trying them on, then unpicking them, then repeating the whole process until I thought it was good enough. They’re not perfect, but I didn’t want to over-fit them and make them uncomfortable to sit down in, which is always a worry!

Men’s pockets are soooo huge! I’ve got other ready to wear things (and probably things I’ve sewn) with teeny tiny pockets – pockets too small to fit an iPhone. But I can get half my arms in these pockets! I’m very glad I kept them. Also it’s so quick to sew a pair of trousers when the pockets are already done!

I did do a totally new fly, though I used the original zip. I had to slightly fudge the fly piece and the fly shield as because I had made them more high-waisted than in the orignal pattern, the pieces weren’t tall enough to reach the waist band. The original fly and fly shield were much thinner than the ones for this pattern, so I used the pieces I had cut off the bottoms of the trouser legs to make new pieces. It pretty much worked, and you can’t see any of the McGyvering on the outside.

One of the things I’m proudest of is managing to keep this metal clasp – I bent the prongs that went through the waistband facing to get it off, then poked it through once Id finished the trousers, when I knew it would be in the right place. The hook part of the clasp stayed where it was from the original waistband – I just made sure I used that end in the right place and trimmed the excess off the other side (and from the back seam too) so I could keep the metal thingy.

The original waistband facing (and the pocket bags) are made from this weird cream fabric, as shown above. The facing must be interfaced as it’s quite thick (unless they’re 2 different cream fabrics). Anyone know why it would be so contrast-y? Also there was a gusset from the same fabric in the seat of the trousers, but I did not put that back in as it looked a little worse for wear (gross!).

I also managed to keep the one back pocket, though I definitely think it could have been placed better! I cut out the 2 back pieces at the same time, for speed, but didn’t really take into consideration where this pocket was and made it so I was worried it was going to disappear into the side seam. Luckily there’s only one, so it’s not like one is perfect and the other one is around the side, so hopefully it isn’t as noticeable as I think it is!

Even after cutting off a chunk of the length of the trousers when I trimmed the legs to match the Simplicity pattern, I still had to shorten them by 8cm to get the ankle length hem I was after. I cut off 6cm and left myself 2cm for a double folded hem. I hemmed them on the machine, but I’m temped to unpick it and sew it invisibly by hand as a machine hem doesn’t fit with the style of the trousers. But they’re wearable for now.

And now onto the jacket.

I was going to use the Great British Sewing Bee Hacking Jacket as a pattern to base the jacket on, but I could not get the pattern pieces to fit. Boo. I do want to make it one day as I like the style of it, but for this jacket I decided to slightly wing it and take it in on all the seams where I had unpicked – I maybe shouldn’t have been so hasty to unpick so much!

I think it might be easier to just list all the places I took it in and by how much (in case you’re interested):

5cm off the shoulders
3cm off the side seams (initially I took off 5cm but the pockets were too much to the side so I changed it)
3cm off the back seam (in 2 chunks as I kept tweaking the adjustments)
3cm off the shoulders of the jacket (to bring the shoulder seams up from part way down my arm)
3cm off width of the sleeves
8cm off the top of the sleeves (I traced the shape of the sleeve head and moved it down the sleeve by 8cm to try to keep the button detail on the cuffs of the sleeves, but this didn’t end up working
6cm off the back of the collar

Phew! As you can imagine, this took a loooot of time and a lot of trial and error. The only new things I put in were new shoulder pads, made from wadding. The ones that I took out of the jacket were really past their best and starting to disintegrate. Also they were much too big for my re-sized suit, so it seemed easier to start again.

I made all the same adjustments, above, to the lining. I thought about fiddling with the lining first, so I only had to sew the shell once, once I knew what adjustments to make, but I figured the wool could withstand more unpicking than the lining, which isn’t the most expensive lining in the world.

I made sure to keep the front of the jacket as untouched as possible so I would be able to put the lapels and collar back, without having to know how they work! I sewed a new seam in the back of the collar piece to narrow it so it fitted between the 2 lapels. It was also an advantage to have kept the lapels as they are still pretty well presses, so they don’t want to flap so they’re flat. The notch of the collar/lapel is maybe a little high, but there wasn’t much I could do about it to be honest!

It took a lot of fiddling to get the sleeves right – that is definitely a tailoring skill that I don’t have. I kept the original sleeve head shape and size as I feared making it so small the jacket would have to shrink to fit it, and not the other way around. At one point one of the sleeves was pretty twisted, because there are 2 seams on the sleeve (only one of which I unpicked and took in) and I had lined up the wrong one with the seam on the jacket. It did not feel right! As I mentioned above, I was hoping to keep the button detail on the cuff, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it – and, to be honest, I was running out of time for the deadline! It would have taken a lot more brain than I had at the time to figure out how to re-attach the lining to the button thing, so I got rid of the whole thing and just did a normal hem/lining seam.

The back is maybe the least successful part – but maybe it just needs a good press? I tried to shape the back so it wasn’t quite so straight, but each time I basted it, it looked wrong, so I reverted to a straighter shape – and I’m glad I did as it’s more in keeping with the original style of the jacket. I also managed to keep the 2 vents at the back, which was, again, a headache to work out how to put the lining back in. I wish I had taken photos as I was unpicking as then I would have know how various bits looked before and would have had an idea of how to put it all back.

I’m glad I managed to keep all the pockets – on the outside and in the lining – as they keep the jacket looking quite like the original, and I didn’t have to sew any pockets! Hurray!

The final change I made was to shorten the jacket by 6cm, leaving a 3cm hem (which is how much hem was on the shell before), then the lining was shorter and neatened the whole thing. I was slightly shocked when the lining actually fit the shell, when I went to sew them together again. I bagged it out, unpicking a seam in the side of the lining, then stitching it back by hand once the jacket was turned around. I used this tutorial from Grainline for attaching the lining at the cuffs.

I have resewn the buttons since I took these photos, by the way – you can see below that they absolutely do not line up! It was very late and I was rushing to finish and take photos before the deadline of midnight on the 31st October!

I even managed to reuse the same hook for the back of the jacket. And this is the original hanger the suit was on – I assume my Dad stole it at some point! 🙂

These are all the scraps I have left over after all of the changes I made. It doesn’t look like too much, but I will try to use these up at some point to make the refashion a little lest wasteful. No idea what I’ll use them for, though!

I definitely want to have a go at a proper tailored jacket, from start to finish. Maybe I’ll see if there is an online course or something, so I’ll learn some tricks of the trade. I’m pretty please with how this turned out and I’ve already worn the trousers to work a couple of times. I think the jacket will be a nice warm layer now the weather is getting colder! I have some nice thick jumpers but most of my cardigans are pretty thin, so I think this jacket will see quite a lot of wears when it’s too cold for a cardigan, or over a jumper when it’s really cold.