Swinging into the Holiday Season with a New Coat

As soon as Simplicity released 8509 earlier this year, I could not wait to get my hands on the pattern.

I just love a good swing coat!

Of course, a design like this requires a fair amount of fabric.

But in the spirit of shopping from my stashed fabric, I thought better of purchasing more heavy coating . . . and none of the lengths of yardage in my sewing room seemed quite right. I was quite tempted by a few of the holiday sales, but I held fast to my resolution.

However, I did have a deep blue mystery textile from a recent fabric swap.  And a blue coat is something that works with so many of my dresses!  The fabric is a bit lightweight for outerwear with more drape than is necessary, but I thought I would give it a go.

I also had just enough mid-weight lining tucked away as well which helped add a bit of heft to the finished coat.

I actually started by constructing the lining of this coat before the coat itself.  I can't say why, but it did make the process seem to go rather fast, since I was just about finished with the entire project once that outer portion was done.

Maybe I will have to do that in the future as well!

Besides the irritation of working with a fabric that likes to shred with the slightest movement, this went together very well.

And since the fabric was not too precious to me, I decided to treat this as a sort of wearable muslin.

I figured that in the future I could find the ultimate fabric and make another version.  Or at the very least, make one of the shorter views.

I did not really want to deal with welt pockets with this particular fabric.

But pockets are absolutely necessary in a coat, so I added them to the side seams.  I also omitted any closure for the center front seams to see how I would like that feature on the finished product.

There was even a pair of raglan shoulder pads of whose provenance I have not a clue.  I was slightly concerned that the bright pink color might show through the loose weave of the coat fabric, so I hand stitched a layer of cotton over the top.  This was probably not necessary, but better safe than sorry since I really do detest taking things apart once they are finished!

Which means that this project has reduced my stash without any increase of any kind!

Wait . . . I have to take that back.  I did purchase some navy thread since I ran out of my huge spool from Wawak.  I guess I really do like a dark blue!

But, all in all, a very successful project, and I am patting myself on the back for the new space I have created in my fabric drawers!  To be honest, they just aren't as crammed as they used to be (space is probably overstating)!