Blue 50s Style Winter Coat

The last time I saw my best friend (it's a real pain when your best friend lives on another continent), she mentioned the fact that she's never been able to find a really nice winter coat that was just what she was looking for - brightly coloured, single breasted - not too heavy  for an Australian winter - you know - perfect.  So since she had a milestone birthday coming up this year I offered to make her one.

It wasn't going to be easy - again that living on different continents problem - But I figured we could make it work.  Before she left I took a lot of measurements - every single one I could think of - and the rest was done via Facebook messenger and Skype.

The first thing to do was decide on a pattern.  She found McCalls 7478 which she really liked the look of - except for the pockets - and it happened to be on sale at my local fabric store so I grabbed that and got to work.  I decided to just make it exactly to pattern to start with - I figured once I got size worked out then I could play around with any design changes required.

I laid out the pattern and compared all the pattern measurements with her measurements.  I decided in the end to go with the size 22 - with a 2" FBA and remove the front and back darts.(seriously why do you need darts in a princess seamed pattern?)

After doing the FBA I cut all the pieces out of scrap material - some white cotton and some red batik and sewed up the dress.  I had a muslin - now to see if it would fit.

The first thing I did was to modify my dress form to her measurements.  I let the neck and shoulders out to the correct measurements and then used batting to pad out the rest of the form holding everything in place with a tight old tank top.

Then I was able to try the coat on her.

Not too bad - if you can look past the lab coat aspect.  The one thing I really didn't like though was the way the front pockets gaped.  They were so bad in fact that I went back and sewed the pockets closed so I could get a better idea of how the skirt would hang.

Then I packed up my muslin and sent it to Australia.  Once it arrived we did a final fitting over skype.  She wanted about 1" off the length of the arms - there was some gaping in the top of the front princess seam and about 1-2" too much room in the back waist - other than that it was pretty good.

I made those changes to the pattern pieces and then it was time to find the real fabric.  She wanted a royal blue colour.  I looked in every fabric store I could find locally and found nothing - except a beautiful piece of velvet - but we were a bit afraid that if we made it out of velvet it might end up looking like a dressing gown.  In the end she was able to find a Telio Melton wool blend at Fabric.com  It seemed to be the right sort of colour, the right weight (only 55% wool so hopefully not too heavy).  I crossed my fingers and ordered it then waited very impatiently for it to arrive...A couple of days later a big package arrived on my doorstep - can I just say 5.5 yards of wool is heavy - very heavy.

It only took me a day to cut out the main fabric and another to sew it together.  Then I had to figure out new pockets since I had eliminated the pockets during my muslin.  I knew I wanted to put in welt pockets but I had to figure out how big, where etc.

I tried many different options.

In the end we decided on photo #2.  Then I had to actually sew them in.  I spent a full 6 hours figuring out placement - doing practice welts etc before I was willing to do the actual thing.  But I'm really glad I took my time because - if I do have to say so myself - they turned out fabulously!  these are the best welt pockets I've ever done.

Next step was to figure out the lining and a contrast material to use around the collar.  We had discussed using a velvet on the collar, but just about every velvet I looked at was too glossy and shiny which made the matte wool look quite dull.

Not what we were looking for.  Just as I had given up I found a cotton velvet in black that was a perfect match.

Then to figure out the lining.  I knew I wanted something really bright and I also knew I wanted silk.  This coat - despite being a winter coat will spend most of its life in Canberra Australia and I  knew that if I put a poly lining in it would trap in any heat that was generated and make it all sweaty. I'm hoping that a silk lining will allow the coat to breath a bit more.  Anyway I went though every silk in my local discount fabric shop (the only place I could afford silk for this project) and found the best match for my colour.  It's not something I would normally go for, but I think works really well.  It certainly makes a statement.

I added store bought piping between the front black velvet panel and the lining material.  Not that you can really see it.

As I didn't want any top stitching to show on the velvet I hand stitched down all the seams with the piping so that it couldn't flip around.  I also under stitched the front velvet area where the coat is sewn to the facing and lining by hand.  The cuffs and hems were all finished with hand stitching too which makes this coat one of the most  time consuming things I've ever made.

I had a bit of an issue with the shoulders, I found that the pattern for this coat was quite light on finishing instructions and when we got to the shoulders all it said was sew shoulder pads in place.  Looking at my coat I decided that as well as shoulder pads it also needed a sleeve head, plus I extended the shoulder pads down into the front of the chest to fill out that area that often caves in.  I used a foam bra that I had bought for the underwires etc and cut it up to make the sleeve head and shoulder/chest pads.

Finally we came down to the finishing touches.  Buttons and cuffs.  Black or blue buttons?

black or plain cuffs?

To make the cuffs I just sewed some of the velvet into a tube that was just slighly shorter than the circumference of the cuffs so that they sit around the cuff and and held in place with friction.  In the end we decided to go with removable cuffs and we went with the black buttons and we had a complete coat.

 

Just in time for me to meet up with it's owner in New York so I was able to give it to her - and get a few shots of it on the real model.

 Give as a twirl!

Yep it's really good for twirling in!

The wind just wanted to show off the pretty lining.

I am in love with this coat - and hopefully so is it's owner!  And of course now I'm thinking about making one for myself.  I wonder what fabric I could use?