Burda 9501 – Another Story of Sewing Success!

As promised, here are the details (and photos) of my girls wool winter coats. You can find my son’s coat post here.

I started with Burda 9501, I just loved the photo on the pattern envelope. As with my son’s coat, it is made of wool coating, underlined with cotton flannel and lined with satin charmeuse.

This pattern is pretty good, it was my first time sewing a Burda pattern. I thought the instructions were a little vague in a few spots (as is the general consensus regarding Burda instructions I hear) but I’ve been sewing for a long time, so I figured it out.

The only alteration I made was adding length to the sleeves. I did construct it just a little differently than instructed, both on the pockets and the lining. Ha, it’s funny now that I think of it. I opted to hand sew the pockets on, but changed the order of construction on the lining in order to eliminate hand sewing. I’m not a fan of sewing by hand, but every now and than, when it really warrants it, I will sew something by hand.

Can you believe they are twins? Ha ha, every time I photograph them, the “Little One” gets so much taller than the “Wild One”.

OK, back to the coats. I really like how they turned out! The only difficult part was the collar. I think it is overall, just a little too small, it should have been a little wider to allow more to roll and lay nicely. I also really really regret not cutting the under collar just a little smaller than the top collar to help the seam to roll to the underside. It took a lot of steaming and molding to get them to behave as well as they do. Here are a few close ups:

I cut them the same size, based on the measurements of the bigger of the two girls. It fits really well around both of them and is just a little long on the smaller girl, hence the rolled up sleeves. While I would like them to make it to next year, I just know they are going to grow too much for that to be true. Sigh, I’ll just have to make them new coats next year. :)

This was a big project! They day after the last coat was finished, I felt a little lost in my sewing room. I wasn’t sure what to work on! That quickly ended and I made two things for my son and started work on a new dress design for the girls.

But I learned a lot about coat making.

- It’s not that hard. Just a little more detail and more time consuming, but not necessarily harder than other garment sewing. So if you’ve never made a coat before, give it a try!

- I love working with wool, it really does sew and press unbelievably well.

- Wool apparently doesn’t shrink as much as I thought it would when pre-treated. I over bought in yardage to account for shrinking when I steamed it before cutting. I think I ordered 1 yard extra, and I was really afraid I under bought and would be short. Well, I received almost a full yard MORE than what I ordered when it arrived in the  mail, and as mentioned, it didn’t shrink as much as I anticipated it would. In the end, I still have 3 and a half yards of this beautiful wool coating. And that means…. Momma’s getting a new wool coat too!!!

But not right now, I’m tired of coat making! It was fun to be sure, but I’m ready for some instant gratification sewing.

Oliver + S School Days Coat – Total Success!

I am so completely satisfied, my kids are guaranteed to be warm this winter. I am finished with all three winter dress coats!

First I’ll show you my boys coat, made from the Oliver + S School Days pattern. Stay tuned for a later post on the girls’ coats.

This was my first ever Oliver + S pattern. I had read so much about how great these patterns are so I was excited to make one myself. I couldn’t be happier! It was so well drafted, the instructions are crystal clear and the finished coat is beautiful. And it went together very quickly. I had the coat done, start to end in two short evenings(not including cutting it out, that was done previously). I say short because both evenings were full of constant interruptions. Not bad for a fully lined, very RTW looking wool coat!

And my son really likes it. He is almost five and is very appreciative when I sew for him. Admittedly , I do sew more for the girls, partly because there are two of them to just one of him, but also because it is a bit easier for me to sew for girls. So when I make something for him, he really is happy. I hope this lasts!!

So without further ado, here it is!

As I wrote about before, it is made of a wool/nylon blend coating, underlined with cotton flannel and lined with satin charmeuse, with the exception of the hood, which is just the wool and flannel. I didn’t think a satin lined hood would be as comfortable nor would it stay on his head.

I had some care labels in my stash which I inherited from my mom’s stash so I added a Dry Clean Only label in the side seam of the lining. However, I think with the pre-treatment of all my materials, I should be able to hand wash this coat in cold water and line dry it without any risk.

These wooden toggles were the only ones I could find locally, and I looked long and hard. At first I was really disappointed about not finding black toggles, but now the contrast of the wood is growing on me. I had looked around online and found a few Etsy seller that had some nice black toggles, but I didn’t want to wait for them to be shipped. My son’s old coat was really too small and he needed this one to be finished!!

I used sew-on snaps for the closures under the front plackets, I always sew these on by machine with a narrow zig-zag set to a short stitch, similar to sewing on a regular button by machine. It makes me feel like I get it on more securely than it would be if I hand stitched them on – especially for something that is going to be snapped and unsnapped by a kid!

I did have some trepidation when it came to choosing a size to cut for him. When I compared his freshly taken measurements to the size chart on the pattern, he was all over the map. He measured at a size 6 for height, 5 for weight, 4 for chest and 12-18 months for waist and hip!! Hum, I always knew he was tall and skinny, but c’mon!! However, with so many gushing reviews of Oliver + S patterns, I still had reason to trust in their sizing. So I pondered it for a while and decided to cut a size 5, with added length of 2”. My goal was for it to come out just a little long and wide enough to be worn over a thick sweater comfortably. And it did! Provided he doesn’t grow 6 inches in a year (which he probably will since I don’t want him to) this coat should definitely last him for this winter as well as next winter.

I cant say enough about how happy I am with this pattern. It will get used over and over again. And I am so happy that Oliver + S has brought it back as a Digital Pattern, available for download. Although I purchased a paper pattern immediately when I found out it was going OOP, it’s nice to know that the digital option will be around should anything ever happen to my copy.

Pattern Review can be found here.

Next up, the girls’ coats.

Still Here!! Just Busy Sewing….

So sorry for the posting drought last week! I’ve been working on the coats so much and really nothing else. I did get the girls coats finished on schedule!!!

They have worn them a couple times already and they are fabulous!! I want to do a proper post on them, and I haven’t had a chance yet to photograph the girls in the coats, so I’ll leave you with this teaser photo.

This tag is so true, this has been a labor of love. My kiddos will be warm and cozy all winter long.

Also, the size tags that I mentioned before came just in time!!! I absolutely LOVE them. They came much faster than expected (I was told it would take three weeks, they arrived in one) and are exactly what I was looking for. In case anyone else is interested, I ordered them here. They have some other labels that I just might order in the future.

One of the things I like about these tags is the fact that they are reversible. The size is on both sides of the tag and can be sewn in vertically or horizontally.

I’m making progress on my boy’s coat, and would be farther along if not for the light bulb in my sewing machine burning out the other day. Little hard to do strait topstitching without the light. I do plan to finish it up before the end of the week still. The long weekend will help!

And I’m so excited about my most recent pattern purchase!!

I have been wanting this pattern for sooooooooooo long, but have not ever been able to find it in the above highlighted size range, as it is OOP. But I happened upon a shop in another state (via an internet search) that had some left in stock and I was able to order it. I’ve been just dying to sew it up, but I’m determined to plow through this last coat and get that finished before I start anything else new.

Next post, I promise, will have some finished objects!

Dress Coats – Lots o’ Prep and Cutting

I’ve started work on my big coat project and it is already a lot of fun! All of my materials and the Oliver + S pattern arrived last week. Here are the details.

All three coats are being made of the same materials, just for the sake of simplicity. I order a black wool coating that is 95% wool and 5% nylon. I am interlining all three coats with 100% cotton flannel for some added warmth. The lining is a 100% polyester Satin Charmeuse, also in black. I haven’t yet decided on my interfacing yet, I have to test a few out and see which works the best with my wool.

Over the weekend I prepped the wool and flannel. The flannel, simply by washing and drying twice to preshrink. The wool I preshrunk using the dryer method, which worked out very well. My piece was 7.25 yards and I did not want to cut it into sections before preshrinking it. So at first tossed my yardage in the dryer with two wet towels and ran it on high for 40 minutes. But it didn’t seem to shrink much, so I laid the whole piece out on my kitchen floor and sprayed it down with a water bottle, making sure the entire surface was good and damp/wet and then put it in the dryer again for another 40 minutes.

Here’s a sample of the wool I cut after using the dryer method. Both pieces are exactly 3” x 3”. One I steamed to death with my iron, the other I left alone, then I compared to ensure that they dryer method really did steam/shrink all my yardage completely. I’d say it worked, as both samples are still exactly 3” x 3”!

Saturday I started cutting out the Burda pattern for the girls coats, because I had that one traced already. I have both coats cut out of the wool and most of the interlining. Just a little more cutting to go. But I think tracing and cutting is the most tedious and time consuming part of sewing. While I’m at it, I think I’ll trace off and cut my boy’s coat now and get all of the cutting over with at once.

The other exciting piece of this project is the size tags I found on Etsy this weekend!!! I’ve been searching for a place to buy size tags that didn’t require a 1000 tag minimum of just one size. I sew a lot, but I will not sew 1000 garments in size 4. But I found this Etsy shop and I ordered 100 tags in a combination of sizes from 4 to 7 and in a few different colors. I cannot wait for these to arrive, I’ll definitely post again about what they are like once I see them in person.

So that’s that on the coat front. The girls’ play coats are fantastic now after a week of wear. They are really warm and cozy.

I also decided (about two seconds after reading the post) to enter the So You Think You Can Sew contest over at Mommy by Day, Crafter By Night. It sounds like lots of fun!! I entered my yellow jacket project.

That’s what I’ve had going on this week. Amidst the coat project, I  do have a half finished dress for the girls that is an original design. I’m going to try to get that finished up this week and possibly even get a tutorial up for it.

Bring on the Cold!

I’m in coat making mode! I’ve been planning wool dress coats for all three of my kids over the past few weeks, but my girls needed play coats and fast. It’s getting cold out there! So I thought it would be good to work on a couple of play coats as a warm up to the big coat project I’m planning.

I started with McCalls 5743 which is an unlined fleece jacket/coat, I’ve had this pattern in my stash for more than a year. I actually started to make it last fall, but abandoned the project as it just wasn’t what I was hoping for at the time. This year I found success though!!

I definitely wanted a lined coat, so after tons and tons of fiddling with the pattern pieces, I was able to draft a jacket front lining that worked with the front facing. This is what the assembled lining looked like before it was bagged with the outer coat.

Excuse the messy sewing room floor – I completely tore my sewing room apart last weekend and rearranged everything and it’s not really all put together again yet!

Anyway, I was excited to bag a lining (which I’ve never done before!) and it turned out great!! It’s one of those things I could never understand when reading about it online, but once I did it in real life, it was a piece of cake! Even the sleeves are perfect. Though this may not be the most tailored application of it, I’m glad I got to accomplish this a couple times before starting on the wool coats.

I used a Cuddle Fleece (or Flurr as I’ve recently seen it called – a mix of Fleece and Fur) from Hancock, the lining is a crepe back satin and it is underlined with a 100% cotton quilt batting. It gets cold here in MN, so I wanted to make sure it would be warm enough to last the whole winter. The cuddle fleece was crazy to work with! It shed EVERYWHERE! At the raw edges, not when finished. My sewing machine handled it well, but the pile was so thick that I would actually loose pins in it! The only down side is that the gathering detail around the yoke in the front and back is pretty much lost with the thickness of the fleece. But it’s soooooo soft and cozy, so that makes up for it!

My other big design change was to elasticize the hood. I wanted it to be snug around their little faces to keep the cold wind out. I cut four of the pattern hood piece (instead of just two per the instructions) and stitched them RST at the indicated fold line. Then I stitched again 5/8” from the edge to form a casing and inserted 1/4” elastic. I added the elastic and then placed the hood on one the girls heads and pulled until it fit snugly to get the right length on the elastic. Worked like a charm!

The buttons, as cute and perfectly coordinating as they are, are just for show. I used large sew on snaps for the closers. I just didn’t feel like attempting button holes through this fleece!

The girls love them!! They fit really well, they are a little big, which was intentional, cuz these girls grow like weeds.

Excuse the iPod, it was the only way to keep a willing subject for photos!

Goofy girls!

Check out my pattern review here and be sure to check back here on Monday for a giveaway! Now excuse me while I go de-fuzz my sewing room….