So, after 9 (I think…) years dating, I finally sewed something for Phil;) To make up for lost time, I started with a fairly substantial make, a coat.
This is Thread Theory’s Goldstream Peacoat. I know Lauren has written about this before, but coat making isn’t necessarily that hard, it’s just looooong. The construction of this Peacoat is relatively straightforward, it’s just more time consuming than your standard sewing project. Even the cutting out takes ages. I normally always trace my paper patterns in case I want to use a different size in future, but I couldn’t face tracing all of these pattern pieces so I just cut out the tissue pattern.
Cutting out took even longer in my case, as I actually did it twice…
I originally purchased fabric from Coupons de Saint Pierre for this coat during Carmen’s Paris meet-up (In fact it was the second time I bought fabric for the coat during the meet-up, as Phil rejected the first fabric I bought, so I used it to make this Oslo cardigan for myself instead). Coupons de Saint Pierre sells pre-cut fabric lengths, but I did measure the fabric before buying. However, when I started cutting out the fabric I didn’t have nearly enough to make the coat, so I obviously didn’t measure well enough… I tried to match the fabric locally but couldn’t find an exact match in my local fabric shops. So, I did what I normally do and went to Barry’s and bought new fabric, the lovely soft wool pictured here, and started my cutting out again. I lined the coat with a printed cotton, also from Barry’s, and finished it with buttons from Birmingham Rag Market. Before cutting my fabric, I pre-treated the wool by putting it in the tumble dryer on a wool setting with some damp towels to remove shrinkage.
This is version 1 of the Goldstream, made in size XL. The only change I made during construction was to attach horse hair canvas to almost every pattern piece, as the wool I used was quite soft and drapey so needed the canvas for structure.
I actually made this coat over Christmas – I like to have a ‘big’ project for the Christmas holiday, and this was mine last year – and these photos were taken just after I completed it, on a shopping and sightseeing trip to London. After wearing the coat for a couple of days, Phil submitted some alteration requests! A couple of requests were fairly minor; I re-sewed the hem (which was riding up), and interfaced the pocket flaps (which were about the only pattern piece not previously interfaced). Phil was also finding the sleeves slightly tight around the armholes. The sleeves were slightly gathered, so I let them out to their full size and added a small triangle to the body of the coat at the seam line to accommodate the extra width. Obviously I would ideally have picked up this issue earlier. I did do a very basic toile for this coat and it appeared to fit ok, but I was a single layer toile in a cotton so didn’t replicate the thickness of the full coat and pick up the issue.
The first time Phil wore this coat he found a pin or two still attached, which made me think of this post by Rachel. I’m not planning to wait another 9 years to make something else for Phil (honest); I fancy trying the Newcastle Cardigan next.