Doing a Von Trapp (Vogue 1321 Coat)

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Basically, I had like 4m of this brilliant curtain fabric lying around, which I'd partially made into curtains before deciding that duck egg blue wasn't the right colour for the room for which it was being made, or any other room in the house for that matter. Eventually, I got annoyed with how much space it was taking up in my fabric pile and decided it was time to do something with it.

So I figured I should make a coat. I realised I'd actually still have just about enough fabric to make something else if I really utilised every inch of the fabric, so also cut out a dress at the same time (I'll post links once that post's up!).

The coat pattern I went for was the Vogue 1321 by Donna Karan, which was something I bought several years back and lusted over, but never felt confident enough in my sewing to actually attempt.

I didn't make a toile for this, basically just because the coat requires so much fabric it seemed like a bit of a waste (also, laziness) so I just kind of hoped for the best with the sizing. If I had made a toile, I would probably have found out I needed a size smaller, as it is quite big on me. I mean, the oversized thing works, but it would be perfect if it was just that tiny bit smaller on the shoulders.

The pattern was fine to follow and I don't think there was anything major that had me wanting to tear the instructions into tiny pieces, so that's always good. The only thing was that it wanted you to have exposed raw edges on all the seams and darts (as a design feature, not an oversight) on the outside of the fabric and this just wasn't going to happen. This fabric frays like a motherb*tch for one thing, and also, I don't think there's ever been a time or a place for raw edges, so I just sewed these up as normal seams.

And I freaking love the result. The fabric looks so much better as this coat than it ever would have as curtains, and I absolutely love the design of this sewing pattern.

And I love that the collar is so big it makes it look like I've got huge 80's shoulders.

And since it took me so long to blog about this coat, I've already done a whole other shoot with it, also wearing my Drape Drape wrap dress.

So that's it for now. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think of the coat!