And You Thought I Had Been Idle These Past Weeks...

Now you might be thinking, how many coats does this girl need?  Well, despite a very cold June and very wet start to July, I really don't need two winter coats but this particular version was made, well, just because!  Just because I had already bought the pattern earlier in the season; just because I already had the wool fabric from last winter with the intention of making this coat for this winter and just because my fabric cupboard is bulging at the seams, but you have already seen that!

That fabric I used is a lovely reversible floral wool with the design woven into the fabric.  It is quite a busy pattern which is why I have made this one shorter, with the intention of wearing it with pants.  The pattern is Butterick 5685 which looked promising with it's bust fitting and swing style lower half.

The coat went together quite simply and like my other coat, I added a fleece interlining.  The bodice is interlined with the leftovers of my sons dressing gown as it is nice and thick, but the skirt portion and the sleeves were interlined with a lighter microfleece.  I only just had enough of the wool fabric and it did require quite a bit of careful pattern manipulation to actually get the pieces out of the two metres of fabric that I had.  Thank goodness this fabric was very wide. 

Because of a lack of fabric, I wasn't quite able to match my flowers up perfectly, but thankfully could match up the lines of my flowers so unless you get very close, you can't tell there is a seam at all.

With the collar and front facing, I reversed the pattern for a little variation and lined the entire coat with black satin lining from Lincraft.  I did come a little unstuck at the last hurdle because my darn sewing machine decided it didn't like the bulk when making the button holes, so don't look too closely at those, lucky for the busy design really, but we got there in the end.

The sad thing about this coat, is the thing I love the most are the lovely floral buttons.  For some reason I feel a little "meh" about this one and can't put my finger on why.  The pockets in the side seam bother me.  They tend to make the seam stick out and don't disappear like they should.  My other gripes are that it is a little snug across my back and the sleeves are cut in one piece without the benefit of darts and these also tug when I bend my arms.  Would I make this style again....no I don't think so.  While I am really happy with my workwomanship, and reasonably happy with the outcome, I do think there are better patterns available.  It is a shame, when so much work went into it, but oh well....you can't win them all!