Making the McCalls M5525 Coat

It's all very well making one's own patterns, and learning how to sew the various creations together using your wits, but there's ALOT to be learned from following a well chosen commercial pattern, or even better, vintage patterns where you can pick up forgotten or seldom used techniques which were probably, in their day, seen as quite basic, but which now may seem quite unusual.

And so I have had a splurge on ready printed patterns!  The first I am making, is inspired by Gertie, and is thhe McCalls M5525  summer coat.

There is no tailoring in this pattern, but, Gertie has applied "light tailoring" techniques to hers, and it seems to have worked very well, so I thought it might be a good place to experiment before trying a more advanced tailoring project which I have wanted to do for a while, and even more so, since following Gertie's fantastic series of Vlogs, which explain how to make a coat.

I'm going to make view A - the yellow one bottom middle.  This design is made for summery fabrics, but I am going to use a light wool fabric which has a 'waffle' type weave from my stash - I really can't justify going out to buy more fabric and lets face it - this is the UK, it could be snowing in June!!

The lining is a stretch polyester green tone leopard print fabric, and I shall use some medium weight calico as interfacing along with a bit of hair canvas to interface the collar with.  I will cover the buttons (both sides?) using these fabrics.

Having made up the toile very quickly in one afternoon, I am quite impressed with McCalls sizing and ease of instructions!  Usually, if I cut a size 12, which is what I am in pattern language (size 8 in the shops), it's far too big, but this fits very well and is a very nice cut, with a very sleek line.  Even though I haven't cut all the pattern pieces to make the toile - I am primarily interested in fit at this stage, it has been very simple to assemble, and the instructions easy to follow..

Now I have a small confession to make ... ahem .... err... I have NEVER sewn anything which has a sleeve!  So that's what I'm going to do tomorrow!  Attach the sleeves to my toile.  Yes, never ... I'm frightened of them!  I can see disaster looming! Wish me luck!