The Maker’s Atelier Utility Coat

One very wet, cold, blustery day

 

I have become an erratic/ non-existent blogger due to lack of time. There seems so little of it and sewing takes priority over writing, however, just recently I have made a few items I am excited enough to want to share so you may see some posts over the next few weeks.

Do you ever find the perfect pattern and then match it to the perfect fabric and then for some reason not make it up? When The Maker’s Atelier launched the Utility Coat I knew immediately it had to be mine. I also knew I had to make it up in a navy and silver rip stop from Cloth House, and then……nothing.

Well, not quite nothing, I actually spent hours of my life thinking about it; worrying (would I be able to sew the fabric?), surfing (perfect haberdashery to go with perfect fabric), planning (should I try to be clever and make a reversible coat?) and dreaming.

Finally, I got sick of the roll of fabric cluttering up our flat and decided I had to bite the bullet. It turns out that rip stop fabric is surprisingly easy to cut, sew and iron (although the silver side got extremely hot, even on the coolest setting)

The pattern is very simple, the only problem I had was matching the notches on the hood, which I think may be misaligned (but could be me). To ensure a neat, rain resistant finish I used felled seams, hood seams and hems were finished with white tape, which also added some much needed weight to the fabric and the waist and hem have 3mm elastic drawstrings

My favourite bit was using my new Prym popper and eyelet tool. I added small eyelets under the arms to give some ventilation (thank you Frances for the suggestion), large eyelets on the ends of the drawstring channels and the pockets and fronts close with poppers. There is something very satisfying with snapping hardware onto a garment.

So I love this coat. Frances, as ever, has managed to produce a fabulous and stylish shape. It is very practical, being almost water-proof, large enough to accommodate extra jumpers underneath and having pockets big enough to hold my kindle (actually that was my modification). I also love the fabric which is unusual and beautiful but matches virtually everything else in my wardrobe.

There are a few things I would do differently if I made it again, but I will leave those until another post.