Last week I was nearly finished with Holly’s coat, and the week before that l told you all about underlining it, but finally I can show you completed completed photos!
If you recall, I used this maternity coat from the August 2008 issue of Burda, but after the first muslin we made some design changes (namely, eliminating the band and gathered sleeve caps) and an added dart as a consequence of an FBA (full bust adjustment) so it’s not quite the same as you see in the original tech drawing below…
Apologies for the slight blurriness and busy background – this is why I try not to do photoshoots after dark, but it couldn’t be helped this time around! At least you can see how it fits her, even if the photo quality isn’t great.
I’ve only done one or two FBA adjustments in my life, so I’m really only able to follow instructions online but not do much finessing after the fact. So I ended up with an extra dart from the armscyce, but also it ended up lowering the empire waist seam. It wasn’t what I intended, really, and I didn’t think about it as I was doing the alteration, so the seam here is a bit lower than we’d wanted.
Still, one nice “safety” feature I built into the back was to stitch the box pleat together for several inches, but if Holly should need the extra room over the next two months, I told her to just take a seam ripper and open up that pleat. It’ll mean the side seams are slightly distorted, but at least the bump will be covered!
Here’s a shot of that wonderful Roberto Cavalli lining again:
Holly bought the most perfect matching buttons at John Lewis after I gave her a swatch of the wool to take along with her:
So when she and her husband came by to pick up the coat, I just sewed the buttons on while they waited!
I finished this coat right in the nick of time, too! Yesterday was the first day it was cold enough for me personally to switch from my faux fur coat to my muted turquoise winter coat! I only really reserve my Russian greatcoat for when it’s truly, truly Arctic outside (only a few days a year, but on those days, I’m grateful!).
PS: Congratulations to Sherril, who won the random draw for the Patrones Tallas Grandes issue!