A special custom-made coat

Quite a picture heavy blog post today to showcase a coat that I recently finished. This coat was a special commission from a good friend who is also a loyal customer (and has been from the start). We had a vision of how it wanted to look, and finding the perfect fabric and buttons was as much of a challenge as getting the coat right!

In the end we decided on a black poly-blend Melton fabric for the outer layer, and a beautiful blue-black jacquard weave lining fabric with a rose motif on it. Buttons were sourced from Duttons after an extensive look round everywhere.

The coat design itself is fairly simple: full-length with a fitted waist and additional flare at the back to create dramatic movement when she's walking. And, as is only appropriate, a voluminous hood.

A coat to make a goth happy!

This coat was finished just in time to be taken and worn to Whitby Goth Festival, and on the Friday they arrived I had a text from the customer informing me that he was the "only goth that's happy that it's misty and cold in Whitby". I think I can safely say that the coat was a success!!

This was a full-length coat made from black wool melton, with contrasting charcoal melton cuffs and pocket flap, and lined with a very lovely silver jacquard fabric lining. The buttons were from Duttons (of course, we're in York!) and chosen by the customer to match the lining.

First, a picture of the whole coat...

And now, some close up pictures...

I'm really quite proud of this, I'm not a traditionally trained tailor but I still think I did a pretty good job, and the customer was pleased with it which is the most important part after all!!

Moving on from paper...

After drafting and cutting the pattern pieces yesterday, today was the day to move on to cutting and sewing a calico mock-up of the coat to test both the pattern and the fit.

First task: lay out all the pattern pieces on the calico, and work out the most economical way to fit them on to the fabric. This is one of the things that a commercial pattern does for you as they usually provide a plan of where to lay the pieces, but it's a task I quite enjoy as a bit of a challenge. Once laid out all pieces are laid out it's time to pin and cut. 

Second task: the 'simple' matter of working out what order to sew the pieces together in, and doing said sewing. I'm pretty pleased with the result so far, although exactly how well it fits remains to be seen - I still need to draft and sew the sleeves before it can be tried on by the customer!

Developments...

Following on from finishing the ring (see prev. blog) one of my next main projects is a Frock Coat. Measurements have been taken on the customer it's for, and the outline design has been agreed (although a couple of small details are still being decided) so my job at the start of the week was to draft a pattern block based on those measurements.

Once the 'block' was done, it was on to first the interesting bit - creating the pattern pieces in order to cut and sew the toile (calico mock-up for fitting purposes). And there are quite a lot of pieces to this pattern jigsaw - 10 in total...

 

And now to cut out and sew the calico...