Cascade Duffle Coat // Sewing For Women

Cascade Duffle Coat // Sewing For Women

• Thursday, May 21, 2020

This post contains *disclosed* affiliate links. All opinions expressed are honest and my own. If you make a purchase using the links, I make a small commission which helps support this blog. So, thank you!!

Hi friends! Welcome back to the on-going series of "back-logged projects waiting to be blogged"! 😀

I am BEYOND excited about today's project, however, so even though it's totally the wrong time of year here in the US to be blogging about a winter coat, I had to share because I can't wait another 6 months to post about this make!!

A coat has been on my sewing bucket list for ages. I even bought the Grainline Studio Cascade Duffle Coat pattern {aff link} quite a while back during a sale because I thought owning the pattern might give me incentive to sew it. Hmmm... Turns out some gifted fabric with a deadline attached was the motivation I needed, lol.

I bought the pattern here in the US from the now closed, Indie Sew, but it is still available in plenty of other shops, including straight from Grainline's site of course. I'll put that link HERE. You can choose from the pdf version (which is what I used), or the printed. 

The coating fabric was gifted from Minerva, and is this absolutely gorgeous Herringbone Tweed Coating in Bottle Green & Black. {aff link} I'll talk a lot more about this fabric in the post that will go live on the Minerva blog, soon. Stay tuned to Instagram as I'll let you know when that happens, there!

I decided to forego the traditional lining fabric, and opted instead for this super fun Telio Rayon Twill bee print fabric! I just couldn't get the image of how well these two fabrics would pair together, and I'm so happy I went for it! I purchased the Telio fabric from Amazon, but unfortunately it seems to be sold out everywhere that I've been able to find it.

I found the toggles at this Etsy shop, HERE. I absolutely love the quality of these! I thought the price was quite reasonable, and the shipping was really fast even coming from France! Just an FYI, if you are ordering these for this particular coat, you will only need to order *2*, a quantity of 1 is actually 2 sets of toggles. I found this out the hard way, haha. I should have just messaged the seller to be sure, but I ordered 3, and now I have enough to make another Cascade!

I'm having a hard time remembering where I sourced the zipper, but I believe I just went to Joann for that. 

Having never made a coat before, I was also a little unsure as to what interfacing to use, but I trusted Tiahna's experience with coat making, and sourced the interfacing she talked about in her post HERE. 

It was surprisingly difficult to find at a reasonable price, I thought, but I ended up ordering it from Walmart.com of all places (link HERE), because it was by far the best bang for my buck! I ordered a whole bolt of it, since it was actually the same price as ordering only a small amount from the other places that I was able to find it at. So, I guess you could say I definitely need to sew a few more coats with my extra supplies I now find myself with!

As for the sewing of the coat, I made a size 8, based on my bust measurement of 36.5". My height is 5'3", and I shortened the bodice 1" at the lower lengthen/shorten line, and shortened the sleeves 1/2".

I am SUPER happy with the length of the coat. I think it is perfect for me! Next time I wouldn't shorten the sleeves since I prefer my sleeves to be a little on the longer side, and these are the "perfect" length, but I wish they were a hair longer. 

I also did a swayback adjustment on the coat, the same way Tiahna did on hers. I'm so happy to have had her expertise go before me! 😁 I took out about 1/2" around the center point of the back. It really did improve the fit for me personally, a great deal! It was a super simple adjustment because all that was needed was a center back seam along the upper back bodice and could be adjusted after the main part of the coat was assembled.

All in all, the sewing went really smoothly while making the coat! I ran in to a few hiccups, but it was all 100% my fault and just not "feeling" the sewing process for part of time. I know all (or I *hope* it's all and not just me 😉) of us face this from time to time.

The main fabric I used has a nap, and I was well aware of this and was super careful to cut all of my pieces correctly. But when it came to sewing the zipper in place with the zipper shields, I got a bit ahead of myself and also forgot to pay attention to the direction of the nap. OOF. I ended up sewing, unpicking, sewing, unpicking, sewing, that bit in the front THREE separate times. THREE times, y'all! I could only laugh, because by the time I was on the third round of re-sewing, I was feeling a little loopy, lol.

Other than that tail-chasing experience, it all went pretty smoothly! My machines handled the bulk of the fabric well, I made sure to use the proper needles in my sewing machine, and my walking foot, and it handled it like a champ!

I did reference the sew-along on the Grainline Blog for a few parts, just to help clarify things, and I would recommend that if anything seems a bit fuzzy in the instructions. The only sewing advice I have in addition to the pattern instructions is tacking the hem facing up by hand. Since I used rayon for the lining, I knew there was a possibility that it might grow or sag a bit. But what happened was that the weight of the lining pulled the hem facing down, so that no amount of pressing and understitiching was going to hold it up.

To remedy that I hand-tacked almost the whole length of the hem facing using essentially a blind hem stitch. That did work really well.

I can honestly say that I love this coat far more than I expected to!! I am legit excited to be able to wear it once the weather turns cold again! I mean... It can stay away for 6 months, FOR SURE, but when it does arrive, I'll be ready with my absolutely amazing coat!!

Don't forget, you can read more about the fabric I used in my Minerva post that will be posted soon. 

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading about my "Labor of Love" this winter!

Happy sewing, friends!

~Heidi

LINKS:

Pattern: Cascade Duffle Coat - Grainline Studio (Minerva - aff link)

Fabric: Herringbone Tweed Coating in Bottle Green & Black - Minerva {aff link}

Toggles: Etsy 

Tiana's Post with swayback adjustment: Click here

Interfacing: Walmart

Zipper: Joann {aff link}

WEARING: 

Hey June Lane Raglan + Halifax Hoodie Kangaroo pocket {aff link}