Rumana -For those days when you want to be a pirate!

For those of you who don't know, I love coats! For other women it is shoes or handbags, but for me it is coats! I bought my first Duster coat from Wallis when I was 16. A beautiful, black wool and cashmere mix floor length wrap. It was beautiful and I loved it! I wore it daily until I was about 22 and I fell in love with bright, orangey red, wool and cashmere mix in the Hobbs window. It was floor length, shawl collared and fastened with a large single button. I bought a medium in case I got fat which turned out to be a good plan as I wore through my first pregnancy and then later with my eldest tucked up inside. This one I wore until I moved to Yorkshire where the world seemed more straight laced and conservative and it languished in my cupboard for a number of years until a lack of space in my wardrobe demanded that I threw it out.

Now don't get me wrong I have had lots of lovely coats from Boden and from Hobbs since then but none of them have been dusters and none as amazing as the first two!

When I saw the Rumana coat on Instagram I literally gasped! The perfect coat!!!

As soon as it was released on Boxing day I bought it. It went straight into my #2018makenine and was the reason I signed up to #2018sewmystyle.

I had imagined a dark coloured coat with a bright lining a bit like this one that I have been drooling over for the last 16 years. 

As I said in my last post I bought the lovely Melton Fabric from Ebay and I was drawn to the beautiful lady McElroy fabrics for the lining but the one that I really liked had been chosen by one of pattern testers. Well let's face it if you are going to make a coat, you want it to be unique so I decided to carry on looking!

Then I had a brainwave!! Parrots!! I love parrots they are smart and colourful and they are linked to pirates and adventure! This gorgeous fabric has been in my stash since just before Christmas , I bought it from the Pound a yard store in Dewsbury and I had thought I might make an Anna dress out of it. My eldest assures me it is Ted Baker, but I honestly don't care it is the perfect finishing touch for my coat.

I made the size 12 measuring off of a coat that I own as I figured that measuring for a coat in my underwear probably wasn't the best way of tackling the sizing. I think I could of probably have graded down a size especially at the bust for something a little more fitted but as they say hindsight is 20/20!

The pattern pieces fit together really well without having to juggle any of the pieces. Which was just as well as I decided on making welt buttonholes and the Colette instructions I followed cut both the front and the facing at the same time. Nerve wracking !

However, the instructions are not really what you would expect from By Hand London. I have a feeling that they were as excited to give us the pattern as the sewing community was to receive it and consequently the written instructions and the diagrams are sparse. After I had sewn the sides together I realised the Pale pink one that Elisalex had made had top stitching on the pockets but as far as I could see there wasn't an mention of this so I unpicked and put them in. I know that they are planning a sew along and I will definitely look at that for the bits that really had me scratching my head.

So my coat. I love it. It is pretty much perfect. I added shoulder pads for a little bit more structure. The sleeves are still a little puffier than I would like, I think probably because of my fabric choice, so I might unpick at some point and shave a bit off the sleeve head.This is only a slight niggle. The whole thing feels really luxurious and wearing it feels elegant.Though the lining is wild and panders to my 16 year old self. 

The footnote to my story is that both of my previous much loved dusters had a hole in the lining where I stuck my foot through it... Each piece of damage was done within the first week. Back then I wasn't really a sewer and the holes were badly stitched. This time, however, I am ready I saved some of the lining as you can't really being a pirate without a Patch!

Till next time happy sewing

Arianwen