McCalls 7848 Coat Sewing Pattern Review

The project I have to share with you today has been finished for a few weeks already but, thanks to unseasonably warm temperatures in the middle of February meaning that I didn't need to wear a wool coat, it took a while to get photos of it. This is my version of McCalls 7848 - another project to cross of my Make Nine list!

McCalls 7848 is a pattern for a fitted lined coat with front zipper closure, side seam pockets and neckline, sleeve and length variations. I basically made view D (which is a collarless, maxi-length coat) but using the skirt length from view C (which is just fractionally below knee-length on me).

A collarless coat winter coat might seem like an odd choice in some ways, but I'm currently in the middle of a bit of an obsession with knitting shawls, and I thought that a collarless coat would be a good way to show them off. I'm wearing it in most of these photos with my Land of Sweets cowl, which I've just realised I've never blogged - I should probably do something about that!

As coats go, the construction of this one is fairly simple and the pattern doesn't call for any kind of tailoring. In terms of the sewing itself, if you're happy making a lined dress then there's nothing that should be particularly challenging as long as you're comfortable working with whatever fabrics you've chosen to use.

As with most commercial patterns, the instructions are fairly succinct but they are clear and there wasn't anything that I found confusing.

My outer fabric is a micro dot reversible wool and acrylic blend from Textile Express. It's a gorgeous colour and a lovely fabric, especially for the price, but I wonder whether this particular pattern might have benefitted from a fabric with slightly less body and more drape than this has. In particular, setting in the sleeves (something which I'm usually fine with) definitely wasn't easy and, despite my best efforts, the sleeve cap still isn't as smooth as I'd like it to be.

My lining is a navy teal viscose lining from Fabworks. You definitely couldn't accuse this fabric of not having enough drape! I don't think I could have picked two more different fabrics really - the wool blend stays where it's put and when I was sewing two layers together they stuck to each other almost like felt (which made it very easy to get all of the seams to match up nicely!), whereas the lining wanted to slip and slide all over the place. I managed to tame it enough to do a decent job of sewing it though!

In terms of sizing, I had the problem that my bust measurement is a 16 for this pattern, while my waist and hips are an 18 which is in the larger sized pattern. I went with my bust measurement and got the smaller size range, knowing that commercial patterns are often more generous in their sizing. I made a toile of the 16 and it fitted fairly well, but I thought it was a bit snug around the waist for a coat that I'd want to wear over cosy winter clothes. I simply reduced the seam allowance around the waist a touch and that gave me enough extra room for winter layers. I also made my standard adjustment of lengthening the bodice, although I had to lengthen it more than usual (4cm instead of 2.5cm). In case it helps to know for reference, my measurements are B 38", W 32" H 42", and I'm about 5'9".

I wasn't completely convinced about the coat when I'd first finished it. I think a large part of that was because the lining had dropped a fair bit when I left it to hang, and evening it up and hemming it was a little stressful so that had tarnished my feelings about it a bit!

Having worn it a few times though, my McCalls 7848 is definitely growing on me! That "bulky" feeling that I mentioned above is slowly fading and I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at the photos for this blog post - the coat looks better on camera than it does in my head! I love the colour, it's nice and cosy and is doing a good job of keeping out the gale force winds that we've been battered with recently. So overall, I think we can call it a success, don't you?

Schnittchen Malu Jacket

I knew once summer was coming to an end that I needed to get to work on a new jacket - my old one only just made it through last autumn/winter, and I wanted to try to make a replacement so I started looking around for inspiration. I was almost set to make a winter version of the Anise jacket, but then within a couple of days of each other I spotted the Schnittchen Malu and some lovely coating fabric that I seemed like a brilliant match for the pattern, so I took it as a sign that they were meant to go together and here's the result...

The Malu is a fully-lined coat or jacket (I made the shorter jacket version) with kimono sleeves and welt pockets, and the options of either a collar or hood, and zip or buttons (obviously I went for the hood and buttons), so there are plenty of variations to choose from. 

The pattern is also designed to have hem bands, but when I made up my toile the extra length that the hem bands added made the jacket a bit of a strange length on me, so I left the hem bands off, which gave me a jacket just the length I wanted. 

As I was going to leave the hem bands off, sewing the rest of the pattern as drafted would have meant that the lining might have ended up visible around the hem, so I shortened the lining pieces slightly and drafted hem facings to make sure the lining stays hidden away.

I was surprised by how quickly the jacket came together, but then I realised that I'd been basing my expectations on my experience making my Anise jacket, whereas this is a much simpler pattern. The fit is quite relaxed, so there are no darts or princess seams. The kimono sleeves also mean that there are no sleeves to set in, and finally the lining is bagged and turned through a small hole in the arm seam, so there's not a lot of hand stitching involved (I do quite like a bit of hand stitching, but there's no denying that it does take longer!). I did take my time with the welt pockets to make sure that they turned out nicely, but then I managed to sew up almost all of the rest of the jacket on a Sunday afternoon (and it would have been even quicker if I hadn't had an incident with a broken needle colliding with my finger!).

The instructions were fairly easy to follow, although they are just written instructions without any diagrams to illustrate the steps which might not be great if you like to see things visually instead of doing lots of reading. There is a tutorial online with photos though, so that definitely helps (it's in German, but even if you didn't speak German I think it would be pretty easy to work out which photo goes with which step). 

I had the instructions in English and German, which was interesting for me because I work as a German-English translator so it gave my inner language geek and sewing nerd the opportunity to work together for a change! In general, the translation was fine and it all made sense, although there were odd little things like using "sewing allowance" instead of "seam allowance" which were a bit strange. That's me being a picky translator though, it probably wouldn't bother a normal person!

The fabric is a poly/viscose/wool blend coating from Guthrie & Ghani. I fell slightly in love with it as soon as I saw it online and it didn't disappoint in real life! It's a nice weight for autumn, and it's a lovely shade of blue (it's also actually reversible, and the blue flowers on a grey background look great too, if that's more your style), and I like the fact that the pattern makes it a bit different from normal coats. I thought it would be a good match for the Malu because the lack of darts and everything means that the flower pattern doesn't get broken up too much. 

I did attempt some pattern matching down the centre back seam, but that failed spectacularly - obviously my brain wasn't working properly when I was cutting out my fabric. I got a bit annoyed with myself when I realised it didn't match, but then I told myself that nobody who doesn't sew would ever even think twice about the fact that the pattern doesn't quite match down the back of my jacket so it doesn't matter too much. I succeeded in making sure the lines of flowers matched up across the front, so that's something at least!

For the lining, I used some "superior lining" from Truro Fabrics in silver. It's an acetate and polyamide mix, and it is a lot more expensive than a standard poly lining, but it's breathable, really soft and feels so much nicer so I definitely think it was worth the extra that I paid for it. I wouldn't necessarily start using it to line all of my garments - skirts that I've lined with normal poly lining have seemed fine to me, but I think it's worth paying that bit extra for more special (and hopefully long-lasting!) projects.

I wasn't sure what to do about pre-treating the coating fabric, but in the end I did what the Colette Anise Companion refers to as the "London shrink" - you wash a bed sheet and then lay out the damp sheet and roll the fabric up inside it, then leave it overnight, before unwrapping and leaving to dry completely. I'm not really sure if that's the right thing to do, but I feel better that I've pre-treated it in some way at least!

It took me a while to decide what buttons I wanted to use - I initially had it in my head that it would be good to use some self-cover buttons, but the print was the wrong size for that to work well, then I wanted matching blue, but eventually I found these grey ones in a local wool shop. I really like the fact that they're a bit different but without distracting from the main fabric, if that makes any sense?!

I don't think I'll be rushing to make another Malu, but that's mainly because I can't justify having multiple versions of the same coat in the same way that I can with dresses! As I mentioned before though, the Malu does have a couple of options to choose from so you could make versions that were a bit different. I'm kind of tempted to try an unlined version of the longer coat in fleece and use it more like a long cardigan than a coat, but it's just an idea that's floating around in my head at the moment - it may not go anywhere.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out, and it's the perfect weight for this time of year. The Malu is a nice pattern, and I think it would be a good option to choose if you fancy having a go at making a coat or jacket, but aren't quite ready to commit to lots of tailoring or a more complicated pattern (as long as you're OK with the lack of diagrams in the instructions). Has anybody else been sewing a coat or jacket recently?