I’ve been planning on sewing myself a new winter coat for a while now, and I’ve been lurking on Marji’s Great Coat Sew Along site (currently members-only) for a bit, but after I saw her timeline, I finally realised I can jump right in and sew this alongside all my other summer sewing! So the month of May is where we’ll be gathering supplies, then doing muslin fitting in June, and finally starting the coat construction in July in order to hopefully finish in September.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt confident I could stick to that schedule, and now our boat renovation plans are looking likely to include the demolition of my temporary sewing room in the fall (to make way for our bedrooms and our lounge) so I may not have a place to sew my coat if I delay any longer!
As you know, I’ve already bought my exterior fabric – some gorgeous charcoal grey, 100% wool coating fabric from Rosenberg’s.
I will also soon be buying Thinsulate for my underlining, as soon as payday comes and I can finance all the other fabrics I want from that site alongside it! I’m still undecided on my choice of lining fabric because I’m so tough on the linings of my RTW coats. I’m trying to sew only with natural fibers these days, but I think silk will be far too fragile for me, unless I go for dupioni or silk twill.
As far as my coat needs go, I walk to work about 35 minutes each way every day, and my commute takes me over the very windy Tower Bridge! So I need my coat to be very windproof and warm (which I think the Thinsulate will provide) but also very long so my legs don’t get too cold. I know from experience that the wind goes right through jeans and corduroys, and god help me if I’m wearing a skirt!
Keeping all this in mind, I’ve decided I’m going to sew #102 from September 2005 Burda World of Fashion magazine, though I haven’t decided whether to keep the external buttons or not…
I don’t think I’m too far behind schedule here so hopefully I won’t need to play catchup! I’ll be posting these coat updates simultaneous on the Sew Along blog and here so you can follow along with my progress even if you’re not joining in!