Butterick 5145: A work in progress

I haven’t been doing much sewing these past few weeks sadly.  I have been working some crazy hours, like 60+ hours a week.  Quite frankly, I get home and just want to veg out on the couch and watch a show or two then go to bed.  That is pretty much all I have energy for.  Hopefully it is almost over and I can get back to regular sewing.  I have quite a few garments I am wanting to add to my winter wardrobe too.

I have been trying to find time to make myself a new coat though.  I started it a little over week ago.  I really needed another fall coat as the one I made previously only has 3/4 length sleeves and it gets chilly here in Indiana.   I decided to try OOP Butterick 5145 view A.  I really like the clean lines of this pattern.  It is definitely a pattern that calls for a fun fabric.  I picked a black and gray herringbone with gold threads from my stash.  For the lining I picked another stash fabric, a red shimmery woven cotton.

 

I did underline all of my shell pieces with muslin to add a little more weight and structure to the fabric. I chose muslin over flannel because I want this to be a fall coat, so I did not want to add as much warmth as the flannel would add.

 

This is the right side of the collar.  I accidentally sewed it in backwards with the wrong side up.  The wrong side is two pieces on the bias.

 

I actually prefer the wrong side because the bias pieces match up perfectly at the center creating an interesting detail.

Once I got the sleeves sewn in I decided to check fit.  I am glad I did.  The shoulders hung off of me bad!  Here is the difference in sleeves. My left sleeve is after I took the shoulder in and my right sleeve is before.  I typically have this droopy shoulder problem with most patterns I sew.  Most of the time I let it slide because of the casual style of the garments I sew.  For a coat, though, I could not let it go.  I had to fix it.

To fix this I pinned the coat while it was on me for where I needed to take it into.  I marked it once I took it off.  Before I cut off the excess, I stitched the sleeve down.  I wanted to make sure it fit right and I didn’t take too much out.  I ended up taking out 1 1/2″ at the sleeve head and tapered it down to the regular seam allowance.  It does fit significantly better now.

I am not sure if I am sold on this coat just yet though.  Looking at the picture of me in it I think I could have used to go down a size.  It looks very loose in the waist area.  I am hoping that is just because it has no buttons and maybe I had it pinned closed at the wrong spot.  We’ll see.  I still have the lining to sew together and attach to the shell, plus buttons and button holes.  I just need to make the time to do it soon as winter has decided to come early this year.