A trench coat. How very grown up! I’ve never owned one and had been looking at patterns and discovered that Fibre Mood had a very nice trench that I could get with my subscription. Win Win!
This has all the classic assets of a trench with the double breast buttons, tie belt and storm flap. I started looking at others on instagram to get some idea of what fabric to use. I decided I wanted a khaki colour and was looking at cotton twills and gabardine. I found some great looking, reasonably priced brushed cotton twill in my favourite, Rainbow Fabrics Kilburn, but sadly there was a mess up with my order and it never came. I was gutted as had always had great experience and fabrics from them.
Whilst on my quest I discovered an instagram account Be_made This is a very clever French lady who has made some gorgeous clothes including the Martha Trench. I now follow her blog, and from there I discovered a wonderful French deadstock fabric company called My Little Coupon. They sell most of their fabrics in 3 meter lengths. So I was going to need to buy 6 meters of the wool gabardine that I thought would be just right for my debut trench. I paid less than £50 for this 100% virgin wool fabric and that included postage which was very speedy. They have a lot of beautiful fabric and their website has an English option.
There are a lot of pattern pieces to cut out for this and I knew it wasn’t going to a quick make. I decided to interface some pieces that I thought would benefit from some stability as the fabric is quite drapey. I interfaced the front and back facings, the collar and collar stand, the lapels, the hems and the welt pockets. I maybe should have done the belt too, but if it annoys me too much I have fabric to make another.
I made a size medium despite people saying it did come up on the roomy side. I am happy with the fit, but could have done with taking some length out of the torso. Without the belt the pockets feel a bit to low for me. No biggy.
There is a lot of top stitching on this coat and I now feel very comfortable with this since discovering my edge stitch foot and a few other hot tips. I tried to do as much regular sewing as possible first, in order to reduce the amount of thread swapping, and so I didn’t follow the order of the instructions. Therefore, I never really knew how far along I was. When I did eventually near the end of the project I was nicely surprised!
The coat isn’t lined and calls for overlocking the seams to finish them. I did have high hopes of bias binding the seams, but without knowing the construction of the coat I felt this was a step too far for me. If I make another I would actually prefer to line it. I have had recent success self drafting jacket lining, but the back vent on this put me off trying. That will on my list of things to learn. Anyway I bought matching thread for my overlocker and so the finish is neat enough.
I was a bit upset to have to buy buttons for this coat as I literally have hundreds that I inherited from my grandmother, but nothing suitable. I visited my local fabric shop in person and found the ideal match despite forgetting to take a swatch with me. I bought 2 extra and decided sew the lapels in place through a button as they didn’t stay put.
I have to say, I think this is my proudest make to date. It has a lot of detail and having never owning a trench before, this feels special. I would like a lighter shade in a less drapey fabric too, so I will be on the look out for something suitable.
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Making Pretty Patterns 