The coat I have is roughly 18 years old. I’ve had it since I graduated high school, which means it has lived a long and good life protecting me from the brutal Winters of Northern Virginia and the somewhat-not-so-cold Winters in Texas. It was time for a new coat. I saw these awesome coats by Hot Topic in November. I wanted them, but when I saw them in the store, they felt flimsy and not well-constructed. I decided to make my own with a Victorian flare to it.
The perfect pattern for this project was Vogue 8346. It’s a fitted coat with a bit of a flare thanks to its circle hem design. Sizing was weird for me. I ended up making a muslin of the pattern per my measurements (36-27-38) which ended up being a Vogue 14. It was surprisingly accurate. Normally with the big-4 commercial patterns I drop down a size due to the copious amount of ease. This time, not so much. That’s ok though, I wanted a good fit, not an ego boost 😉
I streamed the whole construction of the coat from pattern tracing to finishing touches on Twitch (past recordings available here: http://www.twitch.tv/fiercekittenz). The instructions were VERY clear. I was able to put it together without doing much with the instructions. The only regret that I have was not serging the interior seams. I let them go since I thought the lining was stitched to the outer fabric. Not so. This pattern actually wants the lining to hang loose from the coat’s exterior. I had to tack the lining to the interior at the seams to ensure they weren’t exposed.
For the collar, I designed the embroidery patterns in Viking’s 6D software package. The right collar says “The Doctor” and the left says “Tardis.” The velveteen is still somewhat plush, so I made sure to use a water soluble stabilizer on the top to make the embroidery pop.
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This is fantastic. I may have to make something similar.
Awesome thank you!
Nice use of the exploding Tardis fabric! And quite right: so much Hot Topic/WeLoveFine stuff is not long for wearing before it fails/falls apart. I’ve been using Spoonflower to make fabrics for my cosplay this year, sure beats waiting for ‘just the right print’ to come out.
Impressed that you’re using Twitch for sewing. And now pardon me, I’m off to check those out! (You kids and your tech!)
Haha awesome thanks! Yes Twitch has been fantastic. I love sharing my craft with the world!
This is amazing!! I have wanted a coat from that pattern for a while now, and now I’m even more inspired… Thank you for sharing this!
PS Would you be willing to share/sell the embroidery patterns?
Yes, I was actually going to be posting the patterns for sale on Etsy 🙂 I have to reopen the shop to allow for this though. I haven’t gotten to it just yet, because I’m preparing for travel in March.