WOMANS REALM K99 - RED LINEN COAT

Originally it was supposed to become a version of Balenciaga One Piece coat, but the 'toile' was awful - really awful. I thought I could adapt a vintage pattern with a raglan sleeve to make a coat - and I did - using womans realm pattern K99 - the housecoat pattern and shortening the length. 


When I was reading up on making up from vintage patterns for contemporary fit, there seemed to be the belief that most bust darts in vintage patterns needed to be moved, as we no longer wear vintage underwear (bras)...., and I altered them but ended up putting them back in original position when the coat was made up.

I have since found that I don't move darts for my fit in vintage patterns - but my nape to waist measures 15.5inches so this probably could be the reason. 

The patch pockets looked tatt so I ditched them, and will probably insert pockets in the side seam later.  I could not find buttons I liked so I covered press fasteners.  The coat is in a heavy linen (great for spring, too heavy for summer) and was in the stash... and was supposed to be lined in cotton but a good match in printed cotton was hard to find, so I patched together some left over lining from scrap and went with that!  

This photo is of my sister wearing it........... and it looks stunning on her.

Advance Wrap 8190

I had been looking at this pattern envelope online and trying to figure out how to draft the pattern and then came across a fantastic and very inspiring blog, studio faro- and within 2 hours drafted and made this one............................

.

and one week later made it again in red.  I made the red top bigger across the back by about 2 or 3 inches and it has a nicer drape, and can even be worn backwards. This has also worked up well in upcycling old teeshirt fabric snood/scarfs, but as this fabric can be so thin, not worth finishing edges!  (we upcycled a primark snood here and it worked well).  The fabric I used for both of the wraps here is a 2 way stretch heavy jersey and I like the fall of them, and the sleeves have nice full folds when worn.  The upcycled primark snood was a four way stretch and did drape well as it was so light.

In all this top uses just over 1 metre of fabric (160cm wide)