One Coat to Rule Them All

My friends, it is finished. Not in a Good Friday sort of way – though I do kind of want to shout “hallelujah!” now that it’s over! – but rather in a “finally I finished that project that took for freaking EVER” sort of way. Whew!!

So you know all that perfectionism I was talking about earlier in the month? Well, I blame this project :P. And what is this project, you may ask? None other than the fabulous Sewaholic Robson Coat! Now, I want to preface this post by saying that this project isn’t monstrously difficult or anything, so don’t let all my hemming and hawing make you nervous. It’s a great pattern! I did, however, kind of set myself up for failure in terms of the timeline.

I had purchased the pattern back in February of last year, and got the fabric in September – a lovely bronze colored cotton twill from Mood. Then of course I put off actually starting the project until the week before Thanksgiving. And here’s the catch: I wanted it to be done in time for The Monthly Stitch’s November Outerwear Challenge. Ummm, making an entire lined trench coat in a week? Not gonna happen!!

And then December happened, with all the necessary gift sewing and holiday outfit preparation. By the time I got back to sewing after the holidays, I had most of the coat done, but was afraid of ruining it with the final touches (i.e. Buttonholes….uggghhhh), so I put it off. Until two days ago. Oops.

But at least it’s done!! And now for the good part:

YAHS

DOUBLE YAHS

In case you couldn’t tell, I am SO freakin proud of this make!! So get ready for picture overload :P.

Back and cuff pics

SO, here are the details! I agonized over which size to make – my usual size 4, or go up a size for wearing ease? I eventually went with a 4, since several bloggers said it ran big, but it’s a tad snug around the bust. Not terrible, but I probably can’t wear a bulky sweater underneath. Granted, if it’s bulky sweater weather, I’ll probably want a heavier coat anyway! I may adjust the positioning of the buttons along the bust to give myself a little more room – we’ll see.

The only change I made to the pattern was to move the pockets up – I think about an inch? Honestly, it was so long ago that I can’t remember! *Edit: I just remembered that I also added 1 1/4″ to the sleeve length, and they are the perfect length!*

As you can see from the above pic, the biggest change I made was to add lining! The twill I picked out wasn’t quite as heavy as I wanted, so I thought a light underlining would do the trick. I used Seamstress Erin’s awesome tutorial as a guide, though I used fusible interfacing for the facings instead of the lining, since I wanted those to be a little stiffer. I hand basted alllll the lining pieces to the fashion fabric. It took forever, but I’m so glad I did it! It definitely made the process smoother in the long run.

I also chopped the back pattern piece in half and cut the top part on the bias to give myself a little more wearing ease. If I has been lining the coat instead of underlining, I would’ve added a pleat in the back, but that wasn’t really an option here. And since my fabric has a touch of Lycra, I really wanted to make sure the lining didn’t rip! You can sort of see that seam here:

More interior pics:

And the leopard print lining is a nice nod to Jungle January – just in the nick of time!!

It was a long time coming, but I am SO so so pleased with the outcome! I’m glad I took my time – it was very satisfying to sew all those details just right, and I definitely hope to make this again. Perhaps out of waterproof material for a rain coat?

Now more pics!!

Top button undone and folded out of the way

Popped collar!

And, of course, no trench coat is complete without a Doctor Who reference:

HOORAY!!!!