Operation winter coat - the reveal!

So here is my final coat!

I am so happy with it and it's an absolute pleasure to put it on every day. Of course the cost/effort per wear on a coat comes out pretty well which is satisfying! 

In this post, I'm showing off the final pics and will talk about fitting adjustments I made, and I'll show you details in another post. 

On comparing my actual measurements to my pattern measurements, I found I needed an FBA (no surprise), a little extra room at the hips/ bum level (another non - surprise) and more ease in the arms (I appear to have weirdly big elbows!). I also added 1/2" shoulder width and did a small square shoulder adjustment.

The front pattern piece was tough to adjust as it looked like this:

On the advice of lovely Brooke from Custom Style I had planned to cut it apart at the waist, but as I needed extra room at the hips too I was able to slash the pattern piece all the way down and add in some extra in the right places.

Should have taken my hands out of my pockets to photograph the back - that pulling isn't there without them!

The weirdest thing is that I did no length adjustments in the body at all! The waist was in the right place and the hem length was perfect.  In hindsight, the pockets could stand to be perhaps 1.5" lower  as it feels like I pull on them slightly when I put my hands in. But they are totally functional.  I also lengthened the sleeves to full length from bracelet length and as a result had to taper them slightly.

I muslined one sleeve and also the collar piece as I was concerned it looked a bit small in the picture (it's fine). However I decided to add darts to the back to take out some excess fabric at back waist. This was done by pinching out the right amount of fabric at waist level, splitting that between 2 darts and measuring where I wanted them to end top and bottom. I had a bit of trial and error in the dart positioning at first as I placed them too close to the side seams so I was glad I had just pinned them to begin with. Me and the seam ripper are too friendly as it is!  

In the final fabric I ended up taking in the side seams more to narrow the bodice to the waist as the shape as drafted  just wasn't working for me. Unfortunately I feel like I took a lot of the vintage flavour out of the coat, but it definitely works better for me this way. 

Details of the construction to follow! 

One last pic as it's a nice background!