Thread Theory Goldstream Peacoat

What do you do when your wardrobe has more than enough clothes and you still want to sew?  You make things for your family of course!

My husband was in need of a wool coat.  The one he was wearing daily for work over the cold months, had been purchased 5 years prior and was looking quite sad so I took it upon myself to replace it.





I bought some fabric at The Fabric Store's winter sale last year with a coat for him in mind.  The fabric is a bonded cotton/wool blend that is super thick and squishy and in a lovely herringbone pattern.  His current coat is plain back, so this two toned grey made a subtle change to the boring black that can tend to creep in around these parts over winter.  I put it in my stash and didn't give it much thought until it started to get cold this autumn.  My husband hadn't forgotten and every time I looked like sewing he asked if I was making his coat.  In truth I was procrastinating because coat making requires a bit of concentration with a lot of planning thrown in for good measure.  After work was not the time to embark on a project that requires that level of detail.

Queens birthday weekend proved to be the perfect opportunity to get my teeth into a project of this caliber.  I already had Thread Theory's Goldstream Peacoat, in fact, it had been bought several years prior with this intention.

Using an old duvet cover, I started by making a muslin.  I opted not to use  his size according to his measurements because it was a size bigger than his usual rtw size and seemed a bit excessive given my experience with Thread Theory's other patterns.  I didn't get too carried away with my muslin, I simply assembled the front, back and inserted one sleeve and was pretty happy with what I saw, reasoning any further alterations could be completed during the construction phase.

Over three days, I put this coat together.  It was a slow process.  The fabric was too thick to make facings from, so I had to peel the two different bonded fabrics apart, carefully trying not to stretch the pieces as I went.  I then interfaced each piece to give it back some body.  The front facing was interfaced twice in medium weight iron on interfacing; once over the entire piece and the second time just the foldback piece.  The collar, I only interfaced one piece and the second, and visible piece I made as the full bonded fabric to keep the spongy squishy look of the fabric.

The shoulder pads were also made by me.  I used the same technique as my blazer and made them the same size.  My husband is quite broad shouldered so I wanted to keep the pads quite small and just enough to stop the sleeve cap collapsing.


I had a piece of lining in my stash that I had acquired from Lincraft on a clearance stand.  I paid around $3 per metre for the piece.  It wasn't sold as lining but is quite a beefy taffeta type fabric that didn't fray like crazy and was quite easy to work with.  Because it is black I snapped up 3 metres knowing it would come in handy for something one day.

Once I had my lining and coat assembled, putting it together was quite a straight forward process.  The hems I hand stitched one night in front of the tv.  I then held my breath while I put in the buttonholes.  Thankfully the buttonhole Gods were smiling on me this time, and they stitched like a dream. 

With the coat finished, I had to wait on buttons to arrive from Aliexpress.  Buttons in Christchurch are horrendously expensive and would have probably set me back $4 each so it is definitely worth the wait from China.

The coat turned out just as I had hoped.  I did need to bring the shoulders in slightly and take in the side back seams slightly.  I think the coat is made for more layers than my husband wears.  Our winters are much milder than Canadian winters where I think Thread Theory are from, so this makes a lot of sense.  If I was to make this coat again, but not for a few years hopefully, I would probably go down one more size.

The above photos were taken while in Queenstown recently.  My husband is not keen on posing for photographs but get him to pose in front of a pub and there were no complaints what soever!