Over the last week or so the temperature here in London has plummeted. It is freeeeeeeeezing; car frozen up in the morning, ‘are you sure the heating is actually on?’, fluffy socks and hot water bottle in bed, freezing. I love the winter but mainly when I’m inside somewhere warm with hot tea or mulled wine.
Luckily earlier this season I made the warmest tailored coat I have ever owned. This coat has been seriously put to the test as the park where I walk Gatsby (my dog) is by the river, windy, and feels about ten degrees colder than everywhere else. Not for me anymore- not in this coat!
I found the wool for this project in one of my favourite fabric shops, The Cloth House. This shop is an Aladdin’s cave of beautiful, high quality, interesting fabrics. There are actually two shops, each specialising in different fibres, both on Berwick Street and both absolutely worth a trip. The fabrics aren’t cheap but I have never failed to find something worth the price! At the time I wasn’t actually looking for coat fabric but this wool spoke to me. I adored the colour and knew instantly what I wished to create with it.
It is quite a chunky coating and lends itself very much to the semi- fitted, collarless, short 60s inspired coat I had been wanting to make for a while. These were the kind of influences I had in mind for the coat design.
I chose to make the coat using traditional tailoring methods rather than the ‘speed tailoring’ more commonly used today. I stitched hair canvas to the front, the hemline and the neckline of the coat. In addition to this I used a lightweight fusible interfacing on the back of the wool where the buttonhole and pockets would be. It was important to add this as the chunky weave of the wool makes it very prone to fraying and the fusible interlining helps prevent this.
The coat is a very simple shape with no collar, raglan sleeves and princess seams. I added little cuffs with a flap to the bracelet length sleeves. The shorter length of the sleeves was an important choice stylistically as I feel they instantly add a vintage charm to the style.
They do however present the obvious inconvenience of leaving ones wrists exposed to the elements. I plan to rectify this problem with these beautiful cream leather gloves from Aspinal. Eminently impractical I would be well advised to buy the red or black instead, both of which are lovely, but the cream are sooooo pretty I need them in my life!
The coat has bound buttonholes- my favourite! I also added single welt pockets which are so simple to construct. I will be uploading a short tutorial on them soon.
The buttons were just some I had saved from an old coat- it’s so fab when you find a way to use these little saved notions!
I am so pleased that I decided to interline the entire coat with cotton flannel. It makes the coat so much warmer and I would absolutely recommend this to anyone making a winter coat. I got the plain white flannel from The Cotton patch website and hand basted it to the wool and then treated them as one fabric.
You can also construct the interlining separately and then hand stitch it to the seam allowances of the coat, sandwiching it between the main wool and the lining. For the lining I used some cream crepe back satin from my stash.
The coat is photographed with my vintage Evan Picone shoes, a Kate Spade handbag, an old Topshop jumper and a beautiful scarf my Marmee knitted for me a few years ago.
I hope that those of you sharing this cold snap are managing to keep warm too!
Ami
xxx
17 responses to “Baby, it’s cold outside…”
I love your coat, it’s so classy and stylish. I love the 60s styles. Your knitted scarf is beautiful, too, and matches, perfectly! Pattern, please? OR did I miss it?
Thank you so much! Yep 60s fashions are so amazing- I love them!
I asked my mother and she told me that the lacy scarf is from an old book called The Traditional Sweater Book by Madeleine Watson – on Amazon for £98.27 new but second hand copies for only 1p + postage! Its a 4 ply pattern but she knitted mine with one strand of Rowan kidsilk haze and one strand of fine lace. Apparently it’s only a two row pattern and really nice and simple!
Do you do lots of knitting?
Ami x
I absolutely love your coat. The fit is perfect and suits you so well. Wonderful choice of fabric and buttons. Can you tell me what pattern you used for the coat as I’ve been looking for an elegant collarless coat pattern for ages.
Aw thank you so much! I couldn’t find a collarless coat pattern that I liked either. I used Simplicity project runway 2508 in the end – its quite an old pattern but its still available to buy online. It doesn’t have a collarless option but the rest of the shape was what I was loking for so I made up a toile and marked the neckline that I wanted and then I just used the pattern to create a neckline facing.
The only other change I made was to reduce the cuffs (the ones on the pattern made the sleeves full length) and I added welt pockets- the pattern has patch or inseam pockets.
All in all was a pretty easy adaptation.
Hope this helps! xx
Thank you so much for the information. Your outfits are perfectly made fit beautifully. You also have a great eye for fabric. Would love to make this coat some day.
This is a gorgeous coat! I just discovered your blog today through a pattern review you posted at PR.com and I’m so glad I did! I’m having so much fun (and getting inspired) looking through your lovely projects!
Ah thank you! I just looked accross at your lovely blog- I hope you get your dress finished by Saturday. I’m always setting myself goals like that too- not sure why I do it…makes life so much more stressful! Hehe x
I love your coat its so beautiful and you are so clever to be adding all of these amazing features to the jacket. It’s our summer at the moment but I would love to make a pretty jacket this year and I will have to check out the button hole tutorial to do so! Looking forward to reading the rest of your blog and seeing all of your pretty creations!
Thanks Erin! It’s so strange to think of it being Summer anywhere- its soooooooo cold here this Winter. Can’t wait to NOT need coats anymore hehe! They are lovely to make tho- definitely worth it! 😮
Wow! This is stunning. So much work, but you’ve created a treasure! And love your inspiration pics. Your blog is really inspiring me to get a move on with my sewing. 🙂
eeeep this is adorable, your shoe collection is insane, im jealous!:)
I really love your style and this coat is wonderful! I am a textile undergraduate and i am printing my own design onto wool tweed style material and would like my final piece to look like this, my inspiration is a 1950s chanel style jacket. Would love to have this tailored do you do this for work aswell? Or do you know anywhere that could do this for me? I dont feel confident enough to do it myself with a pattern 🙁 hope you can help ps you have given me alot of inspiration!
QUE BONITO ABRIGO SIN DUDA INSPIRACION PARA HACER UNA PARA MI NO HABIA ENCONTRADO UN MODELO QUE ME GUSTARA PERO CREO QUE ESTA ES UNA BUENA OPCION.
GRACIAS POR ETE TUTORIAL ME ENCANTA LA FOTO EN LA QUE MUESTRAS COMO ENTRETELAR EL ABRIGO.
SALUDOS DESDE MEXICO¡¡¡
I love this coat, it’s so well made!
Did you use a pattern or did you design it?
I’ve been looking to make something similar for a while.
Thanks, Anna x
So glad I found this post. I’m about to tailor myself a coat out of high quality fabrics (lambswool and cashmere blend) and so many of the things you said rang true. I plan to sew it with silk lining (no point in putting polyester lining in a cashmere jacket!) but I’m looking for some other more couture techniques I can add to make it really good. Did you find anything interesting you wanted to add to this project? I’m looking for inspiration.
Also made me laugh when I saw you talk about the Aspinal gloves. I’ve just been having the same debate and hunting for a pair of cream gloves to go with the new coat and have stumbled upon some fur-cuffed leather gloves from Chester Jefferies.
Wow those gloves sound beautiful! I absolutely love Claire Schaeffer’s book on Couture Tailoring, it is filled with techniques and amazing inspiration form all the greats of the golden age of couture so would highly recommend checking that out.
Totally agree about the lining, I did find some lovely viscose lining recently that I used in a coat and now think that’s a wonderful alternative to silk 🙂 Happy Tailoring!
Beautiful lady and her hair is AMAZING!