Hoodie Parka - my style of coat

I'm not one to follow fads. I rarely buy patterns when they are first released. I always have a look through my stash to see if I have anything similar I can hack or adapt, or I just draft things myself.

However. I. love. this. pattern. I have loved it since I first saw it on The Assembly Line website well over a year ago. I didn't buy it. When putting my Christmas list together at the back end of last year - on it went and my lovely hubby bought it for me.

I have a long coat, it's one I bought from Next before I started sewing, the piping on it is cracked and it's so old the colour has faded. It's still warm, but I need something a bit more me and this pattern is it. It's completely gift funded - well almost. I had Minerva Crafts vouchers from my sister in law for Christmas and bought some black drill fabric - just enough. She had also given me the fabric I used for the lining for Christmas 2018, which I think she got from the stitching show. There wasn't quite enough for a full lining, so I bought regular black lining for the sleeves. not quite as cool, but much easier to get on and off than lining sleeves with cotton.

A word on fabric requirements; many patterns are generous with their requirements and you can get away with far less. Not so TAL patterns. they are carefully planned and leave you with very little scrap fabric. If it says you need 2.4m then you really do need 2.4m - pay attention!!!!

The pattern is for an unlined coat. It just has a hood and yoke lining but I decided that adding a lining would make it much more effective as a wearable coat and go to planning how I would cut the lining pieces of the coat to make it work. essential I treated the bodice and skirt sections as full-length pieces and cut them less the amount that was folded in for the facing. I did have to think carefully about the order of construction and do things a little differently from the instructions in order to fit the lining in. I constructed the hood lining separately and fully bagged the rest. I also used the lining fabric for the pockets and the underside of the pocket flaps. I also made sleeve heads from some spare fleece fabric, to keep the shape at the top of the sleeves.

The pattern is excellently drafted and is multi-size, which some of the earlier versions of TAL patterns weren't. I made a size small (which is where my measurements put me and the same size I used for the hoodie dress, which is a good fit) and the coat fits, but I think I'd struggle to wear anything thick underneath it. That's ok as I planned this to be a lightweight spring/ summer coat and it's already had a bit of wear. If I was going to make a warmer version I would definitely size up to the medium.

I used Prym snaps for the fastening, but already I've popped one and lost it - thankfully they come in a pack of 10 and I didn't use all of them when first applying them to the coat. It took me quite a while to work out the placement of the snaps as I felt the directions would be unbalanced, so I worked out my own distances between each snap - I think it was about 11cm.

This has to be the coolest coat and now I want to make more. but I have a list of things to make and it will be a while until I finally do that.

Burda 6856 Trousers

Oh My! How long has it been since I posted???? I have stuck to my plans and I have about 5 things on the go all at once. So far 2020 has been hectic as January was panto month and I just don't know where February and March have gone! School is now on shutdown and I'll be in school some days supporting Key Worker's children and working from home on other days - these are strange days indeed. I have been sewing in fits and starts and have completed 4 makes out of 9 from my 2020 sewing plans, plus an extra unplanned make. I'll be posting these over the coming weeks

Anyway on to the latest make...

These could have been a very simple make but ended up being more involved than I really wanted them to be.
I've had these on my radar for well over a year and had planned to make view B with the high waist and pleated front.
I began quite well and made a toile, aren't I good? I cut a 36, which I thought would be ok and actually, the fit wasn't too far off on the waist, although my measurements put me in a 38 I always find I have to remove quite a bit at the waist - not on these. I needed to add a couple of cms to make it a comfy fit. However, this wasn't the deal-breaker. the real issue was that pleat in the front leg - it just looked wrong on me - too much fabric and too much volume. It was going to look wrong, especially in the wool blend fabric I had earmarked for this project.

So instead - desperate to get going on this as it was my first 2020 make, I went for view A. This time I cut a straight size 38, which is my regular size in Burda patterns and straight in my fabric - no toile for this one. As expected I needed to take a great big chunk out of the centre back seam  - about an inch wedge taken out from the waist edge grading to nothing at the crotch curve. It looks a little bagged out here, but the fit is actually good. I've been wearing this all day!

I also found the legs a bit too wide in the wool fabric and took about a cm off the side seams at the waist grading to about an inch from the hip downwards, narrowing the leg slightly.

As my fabric was so thick I decided to sew the pocket bags from some quilting weight cotton and I think that was a good call as the bulk would have been way too much. Once the main part of the trousers were assembled and fitting adjustments made I started on the waistband. It's a curved band cut in the main fabric and a facing. I used the wool for both and in retrospect, a thinner fabric for the facing would have been a better option. I ended up hand stitching the inside waistband as it was just too thick to go through the machine. Plenty of steam and a hammer sorted out the really thick bits, but it was not going to be possible to sew a buttonhole. Instead, I opted for a hook and bar fastening.

I pinned and hemmed the trousers. I used a 2-inch hem and had cut 4 inches off the length before hemming. This was a mistake, as when worn with my docs (which have a heel) they just looked too short. I wore them once and let the hem down. The edge was overlocked already. Thankfully I had kept the pieces I'd cut from the bottom. so I trimmed them to 3 inches wide and overlocked the raw edge, effectively making a new faced hem, which I understitched in order to help keep the fabric and edges sharp. The hems were then sewn by hand - and with this fabric the stitches are invisible.

The length is much better and I love how warm these are - definitely winter wear, but here in the UK, that's exactly what we have at the moment. I think these will get a fair bit of wear before the weather improves. I'm also planning to make a matching waistcoat and I have plans for a shirt with a bow collar too - I have an outfit in my head already, which means I might get around to making something this side of next Christmas, once I've finished all my other planned makes for me and for other people. Next up is the Assembly Line Hoodie Parka. It's already cut out and prepped ready to sew.