Grainline Yates Coat

I bought 3 metres of this pink felted wool last year from Rolls and Rems in Lewisham. It was happily sitting in my stash until I saw that Grainline Studio had released their beautiful coat pattern, the Yates coat. I immediately knew it was the perfect match for the fabric.

On downloading the PDF, I realised straight away that this was a job for Netprinter. The ‘self’ pieces for the outer come to 48 pages of A4 and the lining is 42 pages. For A0 printing, it comes to 4 pages which was a fairly time consuming job to do! After cutting out the pattern pieces, I did feel a little daunted as there are about 22 pattern pieces to cut out, and additional interfacing to cut out and iron on to some of the pieces.

Once I had crossed the  mental hurdle of cutting out all the pieces, it wasn’t actually that difficult. I did have to be careful ironing on my interfacing as I used a hot iron which shrivelled one of my cuff facings!

I made some changes to the pattern, reducing the upper pieces by about an inch in length and increasing the lower pieces by about two inches. This was needed because the pockets would have been too low for me otherwise. I also prefer a slightly longer coat, just above the knee. I also reduced the shoulder by 1/2 inch and the length of the sleeves by about two inches.

I was not as precise as I could have been when it came to cutting out my lining with the adjusted length and ran into some problems with the bottom hem not laying straight! I had to turn the coat inside out again and unpick the facing before redoing it. It still isn’t quite perfect but is much less noticeable now.  I also had to unpick the topstitching and redo it as my bobbin thread ran out halfway and the colour changed to a lighter pink which was underneath. Lesson learned – never have two types of thread on the same bobbin!

I was gifted this beautiful pin by Cloth and Candy when we met up recently and it is the perfect accessory for this coat after all the unpicking I had to do!

I used an Anna Maria Horner voile from my stash which was a perfect match!

My Colette pin from Cloth and Candy

I still haven’t added any snaps yet because I find them very tight to undo and am worried about the coat getting stretched out or damaged! I will get round to this one day though as I love the minimalist look of the coat when it is closed properly.

I’m really happy I made this wonderfully bright coat! It was definitely a challenge but a very rewarding one, and I hope to be able to make another more neutral one again, perhaps in a navy twill.