Corduroy Duffel

The Child, I realized, did not have a proper coat.

I have had Simplicity 8312, from 1987, for a very long time, never used

It's size small, and The Child is very thin, so I cut the pattern tissue after having this pattern easily 20 years.  And then I decided to finally use the three yards of alternating thick/thin wale corduroy of unknown vintage (from the friend's relative's destash, many thanks again.)  The pattern called for 3¼ yards of fabric for view 1, but I was confident I could make it work.

And I did!

No, listen: the goal was to make something as warm and comfortable as wearing a blanket.  That goal was achieved.

Being a 1980s pattern, the ease is extremely generous, and I can easily wear this coat (noting this for potential future reference.)

It might lose a bit of interest by not having the patch pockets--that was one of the concessions to having not quite enough fabric, along with omitting the hood and not cutting the yokes on the bias.

If I had been using a big plaid like the illustration of this view, I might have tried to do those bias cuts.  I didn't want to deal with bias on this, not only because of the limited yardage, but also because the prospect of the color shifts of new angles on such a heavily napped fabric...no, thank you.

I do have some sets of toggles, but they are also hot pink and yellow daisies, which The Child probably wouldn't have minded, but, aesthetically, they don't coordinate with this muted dark mauvey purple.  I know I could have done buttons, but I still have fun with the four part snaps and the grommet press, so I went with those.  They're perhaps a bit undersized, but this is currently the only snap and die size I have, so I went with it.  We'll call it 'understated.'

While I did omit the patch pockets, I didn't omit pockets completely, and let the last bits of the lining fabric determine the size of the free form pocket bags.

The cuffs have a deep facing, meant to give the option of turning them up, possibly exposing a contrast fabric.  I was prepared to go with a contrast if I had to, due to the limited yardage, but it worked out.

...and I just realized that I completely forgot to take a photo of the one place I did have to compensate for the lack of yardage, and, indeed, the fact that this pattern is intended for 60" fabric, and this corduroy was...not...  That meant that the sleeve pattern piece, with its extremely shallow and very wide sleeve cap, was about four inches too wide to fit on the folded fabric, and I absolutely did not have enough fabric to cut the pieces separately with the fabric flat.  So, I cut most of the sleeves on the fold, then used scraps already cut to make extensions.  Once I sewed them to the rest of the sleeves, and pressed them (using a towel to protect the nap),  the seams were very obscured.  They also ended up, y'know, in the underarms, so they won't be on display anyway.

 

This project's most fiddly aspects were trying to get the overlapping parts--center front and back vent--to be the same length on both sides.  Of course, I also ignored the directions and did as much as possible with the machine instead of hand sewing, and, in retrospect, the hand sewing might have ended up being less fiddly.  But!  Once I figured out what to sew where to get things even, it was all fine.  And inside, where it won't be seen.

There were a few areas of hand stitching that I...well, I probably could have figured out how to machine sew them with more thought, but, at that point, I mostly wanted to be finished.  I guess now is when I mention that I started cutting this out on Sunday night, finishing cutting it on Monday morning and sewing it all on Monday, so The Child could wear it Tuesday (which is today.  It's been snowing.)  So, yeah.  I closed up the lower edges where the lining meets the front facing, and the areas around the top of the vent, with very sloppy hand stitching, but in a brown thread that nicely matches the brown lining fabric.

And you can't see what a mess I made trying to get that upper vent to be as short as the lower vent.  And no-one ever will.

Since I rushed this, the fabric wasn't cut as perfectly on-grain as it could have been, but that really only shows up if you scrutinize the vertical seams and edges.

There was only one area where the fabric layers ended up thick enough to make my machine pause--it was on one side of the collar, but, the same area with the same amount of fabric on the other side?  No problem for the machine at all.  (And that's with forgetting to put the heavier needle back in, after starting with it but not liking how it was mangling the lining fabric, since I started by assembling the lining/facings.)

So!  That's the whirlwind winter coat, lightweight, for The Child.  Will it ever be worn again? If it is, it probably won't have been outgrown by then...