Tag Archives: kids’ clothes

Coats for Little Girls (Part II)

My younger daughter wanted the older pattern, McCall’s 3374, view C in particular. I was a little worried about having enough fabric, so I opted for contrasting cuffs and collar out of another, dark-brown curtain from the same hamper. Good thing I did… as it was I didn’t have enough fabric to do two facings.

Using this pattern was a little trickier than the other, mostly because the pattern wasn’t lined and I wanted the finished garment to be.  I just used the same pattern pieces, although perhaps I should have graded the sleeve lining a little smaller; it came out a bit ripply around the fold-back cuff part. I could have used the facing-pattern to subtract the facing amount from the front pattern to make a lining front, but I didn’t bother; for the one facing I did have (ran out of fabric, remember) I just pressed the inner seam back and topstitched it to the lining. I did put interfacing on both sides; I wound up fusing it to the inside of the lining on the un-faced side, which was not my best idea… the stiff interfacing really shows on the thin lining. Maybe it’ll detach with wear… if not, at least it’s not visible when the coat’s on.

Other than that it went together not at all badly.

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Coats for little girls… (Part I)

The fabric for the girls' coats

A year or so ago I received a gift-hamper that contained, among other things, some old curtains, a sort of ugly, coarse-woven, earth-tone fabric. They reminded me of burlap, though I think the fibre is actually wool (they didn’t melt when ironed on “wool” setting, anyway, and they feel rather scratchy to be cotton). “Oh,” thought I, “Fabric!” and proceeded to pick out all the hems.

I then spent a couple of months trying to come up with what on earth to do with this potentially hideous fabric. It was badly sun-bleached on one side, but the former inside was pretty much good. What to do?

And then it dawned on me: coats for my daughters.  This heavy, ugly fabric would be great in cute little retro jackets.

Unfortunately this revelation occurred right before I had to start studying intensively for my candidacy exams. Finally, just after Christmas, I actually got out to a fabric store; I bought a ton of lining, thread, some buttons, and the pattern for Simplicity 2876. An hour or so later I scored McCall’s 3374 at Value Village—so now I had everything I needed to start.

My older daughter chose the Simplicity, and wanted a short version (fortunately as it turned out, or I would’ve run out of fabric for the younger one’s). I actually whipped it up in the space of a couple of weeks, which is record speed for me. It was (I may have mentioned this before) my very first lined jacket; I also underlined the old curtain fabric. I did wind up hand-finishing the lining at the cuff and hem, as it seemed simpler than trying to figure out the instructions for finishing the sleeve lining. It worked out quite nicely, I thought, anyway. Now the weather just has to improve enough for her to wear it.

Firsts:

  • lining
  • underlining
  • buttonholes
  • iron-on interfacing
  • collar

Problems:

  • I suck at tight curves (like collars)
  • I also suck at buttonholes (and my automatic buttonholer foot wouldn’t work… the coat fabric was too thick.
  • pattern only mentioned six buttons (for the front); this particular sleeve variation should really have two more smaller ones for the tabs.

All in all, pretty happy 🙂

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