Wednesday, July 3, 2013

COATS : Adjusting my favourite pattern

This was actually a lot easier than I expected it to be!  And I'd say thats down to two things:
  1. I'm pretty familiar with the pattern; and
  2. I had the one I made last year on my headless helper and I could pin things to it to check fit.
I thought I would tackle the shawl collar adjustment first.  For a refresher, this is what I wanted my coat pattern to look like:


The collar on the pattern is not dissimilar, its just much smaller, what I needed to do was enlarge it.  So I got out my tape measure and measured what to add.


I then adjusted the pattern piece.  On this pattern the bit of the collar that you see is actually the inside facing.


Once I'd done that I cut it out from that vintage bedsheet I've been using recently, and pinned it on to check how I went.  This is the front:

And this is the back


You can see how the pen line on the sheet piece is pulling away from the centre line of the coat... so I added a wedge shaped piece to stop this from happening.  I made a new collar piece


And adjusted the front piece


I got the shapes for these new pattern pieces from cutting the facing piece into two where the seam line for the original collar is on the coat.  You can see why having the three dimensional coat was so handy at this point!

And that was that one done!  On to the cape collar!


When I looked at the original coat, with the collar flipped up, it would do up to the neck, so there was no redrafting needed of the front pieces, just the facing, a new collar, and new cape pieces.

The facing ended up like this so that I have something to attach the lining to at the back of the neck (I didn't want to attach the lining to the collar).


Then I played around with a piece of the sheet to make a collar that I liked the look of.


Then I played around with shapes for the cape, and this is what I came up with:



And with it all pinned together I put the coat on to make sure I could still move my arms... and I could!  I turned these two pieces of fabric into pattern pieces and I was in business.

This was actually a really fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea.  However, I think all the cutting out won't be quite as enjoyable!  I will need to find 'the zone'.  Wish me luck!!

Beccie
xxx

17 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Mariela :) You should see them now, they are really coming along! Keep an eye out on Friday, I'll be doing a post to bring everyone up to date on where they are now :)

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  2. I love the buttons on your coat! So very sassy.

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    1. I know, aren't they fabulous! They came from that amazing button store too!!

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  3. Oh wow! You are doing amazing drafting with that Beccie! It's going to be gorgeous when it's finished!

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    1. Thanks Relynn :) I have a feeling they are going to be AWESOME! I have hit a small roadblock but I've just about worked my way around it - gotta love problem solving :)

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  4. Thanks for the walk-through of your changes. I'm always intrigued by how others make these kinds of adjustments. I'm excited to see how your coat progresses!

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    1. Thanks honey :) The detail on my last project was non-existant so I'm trying to make up for it here :)

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  5. I'm excited about your coats! Thanks for sharing the details!

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  6. They are looking great! Thanks for sharing how you drafted the collar - it is always good to see how others do it.

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    1. There are probably 1000 different ways to do it Claire, but this way sure made sense in my brain!

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  7. Love your blogposts about the coats! I'm planning to make a winter coat (for my mother in law) and a jacket this autumn.

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    1. Coats are great projects! They are very involved but worth the effort :)

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  8. you are a genious! you make it seem so easy and ...well, it's not for me lol
    cant wait to see these. to be honest i didnt care for the sherlock holmes one but i think i'm going to like your version a lot more

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    1. With the sherlock holmes one, I just love the shape and the addition of the cape (who doesn't love a good cape!). I wasn't too sold on the colour or the fur trim...

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  9. Is there an original pattern to the coat would love to attempt the teal one

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