I am on fire for Fall sewing right now, and the latest object of my desire is my beautiful little trench jacket. I’d bought some waterproof gabardine from Mood when we were in NYC last Fall, but it was the end of the roll so I only had 2.5 yards to play with while selecting a pattern.
With several years of various pattern magazines to choose from, I was in no short supply of trench coat patterns. However, many of the traditional, double-breasted, longer length trench coats require at least 3 yards/metres of fabric, so my fabric shortage helped me narrow down the possibilities immensely. In the end, it was down to Burda 02-2009-119 and Burda 08-2007-111, and I figured I’d get more years of wear from a stylish jacket than I would a cape.
So the curvy, feminine, petite pattern won out!
I did make a muslin of this (I’d be mad not to for a petite pattern), but surprisingly, the only alterations needed were to lengthen the sleeves. Despite being 5’8”, I tend to find that Burda’s Petite patterns fit me waaaay better than Burda’s Tall patterns (which seem to be grotesquely oversized whenever I try them).
Bosco showed his approval on this jacket at two different stages of the process – on the magazine while I traced it out, then again on the fabric while I was cutting it out (I actually had to lift his tail out of the way so I wouldn’t cut it!
In the end, I had just enough fabric for this jacket plus some clever layout tweaking got me a belt out of it, too. So the nice buckle and eyelets I bought in NYC won’t be left behind, either (and really, this jacket is just screaming for a belt!).
Burda call for there to be a lot of topstitching in this pattern, so I did a quick test using my regular, beige Sew All thread versus the three colours of Gutermann upholstery thread in my stash:
In the end, I didn’t like any of the upholstery colours so I just opted to use the Sew All for a less conspicuous topstitching, which also meant I could leave it off the vertical body seams and not have it be so obvious…
I finished the collar and stand after this photo was taken, but I’ve still got the lining (and facing) and cuffs yet to do.
Speaking of lining, I bought the lining fabric for this coat at Mood at the same time I bought the trenchcoating. It’s a slippery polyester (confirmed with a burn test) that feels like silk, and the brown tartan is printed on the bias, like my silk overblouse…
I find this fabric really funny because it’s totally u-g-l-y as fashion fabric (I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a blouse made from this!!), but I think it’s just a-w-e-s-o-m-e as lining fabric!
Here are all my lining pieces hung up and ready to go:
I’ve actually got way more lining fabric leftover, too, so I’m wondering if maybe the solitary purple stripe will match the purple coating Claire gifted me, hrm…
The only downside to this whole project is that my &*^£% iron spewed a bunch of limescale over the centre front piece (figures, it couldn’t be under the yoke or anything!) the one and only time I steamed the right side without a presscloth, arrrgh. I’m going to try to remove it with some vinegar after I patch test it on some scrap fabric, but in the worst case, I’ll just lap the left side over the right like I have on Susan above. Has anyone ever successfully removed limescale like this from their fabric?
Anyway, while I’m finishing up my version, I’d like to point you in the direction of Peacock Chic’s incredible version of this jacket. Seriously, how did it takes me two full years to make this pattern??