Mothership’s Raglan wool coat

I bought a copy of Sew Magazine recently and liked the coat the model was wearing on the front cover. Not for me but for The Mothership for Christmas.

Also there was a 20% off code for Abakhan for the fabric. Sadly I prevaricated too long to buy the same fabric as the model so went for a red herringbone instead at a bargainous  £7 a metre for a wool/poly mix. It’s a very loose weave fabric but the colour is perfect for my blonde/silver Mother Ship.

Instead of using the Sew pattern I opted for this Simplicity pattern. Although it didn’t recommend this type of fabric I thought the style was right for her Mothership.  We’re quite different shapes – she’s got fabulously slim legs but worries more about her middle – and I thought the buttons up at chest level would give a nice slim silhouette for her.

So the jacket has yokes, is raglan with a facing and has sleeves that end above the wrist. In this fabric we think it’s more of a coatigan than a coat which I’m hoping means it will get lots of wear.

First stop with this pattern was to overlock all the pieces as the fabric frays like mad. It was at this point I realised I’d messed up the pockets by not bothering to read the pattern. I just sewed up the French dart without realising the pocket was meant to be set in the seam. Instead I shifted the pocket to the side seam. Whoopsie!

My second addition was to use bias binding on the facing. I was a bit worried this fabric could stretch quite a bit but couldn’t face doing Hong Kong binding on all the seams so hoped this would work. I do like to finish facings with bias binding as it looks more professional.

I made sure I followed all the top stitching steps to stabilise things too. With such an open weave and with no lining I wanted to make sure it looked good inside and the seams didn’t shift too much.

My final step of interest was to do *GULP* handstitched buttonholes. This wasn’t by choice it was because my machine was having a hairy canary at trying to do an automatic buttonhole.
This was my first ever attempt at a handstitched buttonhole. I watched a number of YouTube tutorials before attempting it. In the end I (mostly) followed this tutorial by Gum Golly.

They weren’t bad but will definitely improve if I was to try these again. I’m not sure it will become a standard addition to my sewing but a helpful technique to learn for tricky fabrics for the machine.

So while I was happy with the final product I had to wait til Christmas day to see if Mothership liked it. She does a lot for me so I was hopeful that it would be a positive response.
And……

Thank the Lord she likes it!