McCalls 2979

This is a coat I made from a vintage 1971 pattern - McCalls 2979.  I can't remember where I picked up the pattern, but it's been in my stash for quite awhile.

I had some wonderful grayish/blue quilted home dec fabric in my stash that was just calling to me to be made up into something. Here's the start.  It was a very "stringy" fabric.  Why it never occurred to me to serge the edges I will never know.  Instead, I had threads on me and half of the carpet in the house from all of the threads it left behind.

Off to a good start!

I had purchased some buttons at a local fabric store and noticed when I got home, that the inside edges were kind of rough.  I had already snagged the inside of the coat once and knew these edges would cause more snags.

Can you see the rough edges on the buttons?

An easy way to fix the rough edges is to cover them with clear fingernail polish.  This also works if you have rhinestone bracelets and notice they are snagging your garments - just paint the entire bracelet with the clear nail polish and it will end the snagging!

After painting the buttons, I thought the jacket would look better with bound buttonholes instead of just regular buttonholes so I did a sample.  

Yes - that looks much better than regular buttonhole!

Now the problem was, I had already completed most of the jacket so marking for the bound buttonholes afterwards was quite a challenge!  I think I did ok though.  See pic below. 

Now it was time to add a lining and trim.  I can't bear to have a plain lining in a jacket so I opted for this wonderful circle print by Robert Kaufman.  Also, I wanted to add a bit of fun between the jacket and the lining so I took two different colors of ric rac - yellow and red - and twisted them together.  After much twisting, twisting, twisting, etc, (you get the picture), I finally had a piece of finished trim (2 1/2 yards worth).  I gave it a good press to make it lay flat and then sewed it to the facings and then sewed the lining on top of that.

Yippee! A fun lining

The pattern comes with a belt pattern piece but no belt loops pattern piece.  Now just what are you supposed to do with the belt when you take it off if you don't have belt loops?  Put it in your purse, wear it as a headband, tie it around your waist?  I have no idea.  So I added some belt loops too.  Here's the finished product.  The color (at least on my monitor) is more true on the dress form pics than on the pictures of me in the jacket.  Not sure why that is.  

The finished product!

Gotta love the collar topstitching

Back view

I can't decide if I like it better with the belt or without

Back with the belt

 And here it is on me!

Love the lining!

Happy Sewing!