Floral Trench Coat (part 1): gathering supplies

Alright I'm locked in to doing this floral trench coat. I pulled this project from my 'Garment Grab Bag' a couple of weeks ago and have started to get all the supplies together. This is also an entry on my 2025 Make Nine grid.

I've been wanting a floral trench coat for a while after stumbling across some images on Pinterest. 

 

The second trench coat on the right has fabric that I know I saw on Mood. One day it was in my wishlist and then it was gone. I don't remember it being low on yardage and it wasn't a closeout. I was this 👉👈 close to buying it when it disappeared.

 

The first coat is from Burberry and the one from which I'm drawing the most inspiration. I searched for a while for a similar print, but couldn't find one. I also like the lighter coat with roses, but decided to go with dark fabric instead.

Fabric

 

 

The fabric is stretch cotton sateen from Mood and weighs 190 grams per square metre. It's a little on the light side for a coat, but with the interfacing and lining, I think the weight will be fine. The fabric I used for the first trench coat I made wasn't too heavy either, so I should be fine.

 

Lining

 

I'm still deciding on what lining to use. My eyes are drawn to pieces 4, 5, and 6 (flannel backed satins), but I think they would be too heavy for the coat. Pieces 3 and 2 are rayon Bemberg linings and a bit too light. 

 

Piece 1 is the perfect weight. It's a nice rayon satin that's heavier than Bemberg, but lighter than the flannel back satins. The problem is the color; it matches perfectly with the flowers, but it may be too dark overall. I'll keep searching for more lining. If I can't find what I'm looking for, the green will work.

 

Supplies

This picture shows some of the supplies I intend to use in making the coat (left to right):

• potential green lining
  
• off white piping to go between the lining and facings
• 1/8" cord and darker bias tape to make piping if I don't like the lighter color
• 3" x 11" bias-cut fleece for sleeve heads
• 2" interfacing for sleeve and back panel hems
  
• black buttons in two sizes for the front, front flap, epaulettes, sleeve tabs, and belt tabs
• scrap of muslin for back stay
• weft interfacing for facings, front, and side front panels

I'll probably construct the coat on both my semi-industrial and commercial sewing machines and finish the edges on my serger. For the shell, I'll use black thread for seaming and topstitching. 

 

I might be forgetting some supplies right now. I'll gather more as I need them.

 

Next up:  cutting out the main garment pieces, marking notches/important points, and fusing interfacing. I will try to remember to document this process as I go along.

 

Thanks for reading. 😊

L

 

 

 

Jeans #9 (Part 1 - prep)

That's eight pairs of Jalie 2908.  Eight.  What can I say?  I love making and wearing jeans.  

Currently, I only wear five of the eight because one pair stretched out so much that I can take them off without unzipping or unbuttoning.  The other two are too small because...well...chocolate happens.

So I'm working on #9.  This time around, I've decided to carefully document the time it takes to make one pair and photo the process as I go along.  Oftentimes people ask me how long it takes to make them and I never have an answer.  A few hours?  A few days?

Prepping the Fabric (time not counted)

I always wash and dry my denim three times before I cut.  I learned to do this after my first pair shrunk considerably after I made them.   I like the hem of my jeans/pants to touch the top of my shoes.  This pair shows way too much shoe.  

I don't add any fabric softener or conditioners to the water.  After the third drying session, I immediately remove the fabric from the dryer and iron out all of the wrinkles.  I've found that leaving the fabric in the dryer causes some (most?) of the wrinkles to set.

I didn't time this part because I washed and dried over a couple of weeks.  I try to combine loads as much as possible so I only handled the denim when I had something to wash.

Cutting Out the Pieces/Prepping Machines (33 minutes)

Since I've made this pattern so many times already, cutting out didn't take much time.  The pieces are already prepared and altered to fit.  I still have to cut out the pocket lining and interfacing.  I'll add this in a separate section.

To sew jeans (or anything with topstitching), I set up three machines.  I usually sew the seams first, serge them together, press the seam to one side, then add a double row of topstitching. 

older picture of machine set-up for jeans sewing

That's all I have for now.  I started designing the back pockets and will share those details in the next post.   Currently I'm working on my last UFO (Vogue 8426) which I'm making in denim and including lots of topstitching.  I hope to finish that soon, but I think I'm getting sick so we'll see how that goes.

Until next time, peace!

L