I have really been in need of a new winter coat over the past couple of months! I didn’t want to buy one in the shops as I have quite a few patterns that I have bought over the years and not actually sewn yet, so I made a commitment to myself to sew one up this Winter season. The Chloe coat by Sew Over It came out several years ago and I originally bought it as part of their online class ‘Intro to Sewing Coats’. For some reason I then also bought the paper pattern too! I can’t remember why – maybe it was to avoid having to tape together a coat sized PDF pattern!!
The Chloe coat is a classic, simple style with a round neckline, patch pockets and a detachable scarf. It has long, cut away darts on the front and is fully lined. The online course is really comprehensive and consists of a series of short videos led by Lisa Comfort (original founder of Sew Over it) which demonstrate each of the sewing steps in detail.
Fabric
Fabric wise, the Chloe coat can be made out of a variety of fabrics depending on the season that you are sewing for. The pattern envelope recommends a medium to heavy weight material like tweed, boucle or boiled wool. But if you are looking for more of a spring coat then you could use a viscose linen or viscose wool blend according to one of the videos in the online class. I used some navy blue melton wool fabric which I bought ages ago which was perfect for this project and the warmer style coat that I was looking for. If my memory serves me correctly this was bought from Bolts and Bobbins when they had their ‘pop up’ day at Yarn Etc in Harrogate. The fabric was nice to work with, it doesn’t fray at all and is really warm to wear. It was quite ‘bouncy’ which is to be expected from wool and so I did invest in a clapper to help press the seams and get a crisper finish.
You also need lining fabric and I just went for some standard acetate lining in a lovely bright turquoise colour which I thought would be a nice contrast to the navy blue on the outside. The lining was purchased from Gillies Fabrics in York.
Several of the pattern pieces need to be interfaced and I used proper tailors interfacing from the Remnant House in Harrogate which worked really well and provided a lovely structure to those areas.
Fitting
I did make a calico toile of the coat before cutting into my nice fabric as I wanted to be sure that the fit was ok. Luckily I could get away with just cutting out the front, back and sleeves and assessing the fit from those pieces. Everything looked fine – the darts ended in the right place for me, the length of the coat was just about right after taking into account the hem and the shoulder seams were sitting in the correct position. The only issue I noted was the sleeves seemed way too long. I was about to look at shortening the sleeve pattern pieces and then reviewed the instructions for the sleeves and noted that they get you to turn the sleeve hems up by 5 cms as part of the construction. I folded up that amount on my toile and it came out just about right on my arms – so no alteration needed.
So my tip would be to always review the sewing instructions as part of your assessment of the fit of a toile before making any amendments to the pattern. Don’t assume that hem allowances will just be the standard seam allowance, they may be more. If I had gone with my initial thoughts on these sleeves, they would have ended up far too short!
The online class has quite a bit of support with regards to fitting and pattern adjustments such as how to lengthen or shorten your coat, grading between the different sizes and adjusting for a fuller bust.
Sewing
In terms of sewing up the Chloe coat I relied on a combination of both the written instructions from my paper pattern and also the videos as part of the online class. Sew Over It class this pattern as intermediate and I would probably say that’s about right. There are quite a lot of standard sewing steps which as a beginner you would find quite straightforward but there are also some more tricky sections which require a bit more experience. For example, the shoulder seams, the sleeve underarm seam and the sleeve head have quite a bit of ease in them so require some careful easing when pinning and sewing these sections. It would also be very easy to get mixed up with the coat facing pieces, particularly where you have to trim down the facing and the coat front, Lisa does talk you through that quite clearly within the online class but there is still the potential to get this wrong – ok if you have spare fabric to cut another facing piece but disastrous if you don’t!
There’s lots of skills to be learnt with this pattern, the main new one for me was adding ice wool (or in my case wadding) to the inside of the sleeve head. This is a nice technique to support that area of the coat and give it a nice clean, structured shape from the outside. It’s a good introduction to proper tailoring which was good to practice. Other skills to learn in this project are inserting an open-ended zip, sewing cut-away darts, attaching a lining and facing, setting in sleeves, attaching patch pockets, just to name a few. If you don’t fancy a zip, instructions are also including for added snap fasteners instead. So in this respect, it’s a pattern where you can really work on levelling up your sewing skills with the support of the video classes in addition to the written instructions.
I did find that the order of one or two of the sewing steps was slightly different between the instructions and the videos but that wasn’t too much of an issue. I also thought that where the pattern instructions lacked some detail, the videos made up for that; for example where some seam allowances differed from the standard and the instructions were silent on that but the videos made it clear. There was one section that seemed to be completely missing from the instructions** – the finishing of the corners of the facings but the video did cover that, although I had to watch that section a few times to understand it completely.
**I have had my pattern for some years so it may have been updated by now.
Style
The Chloe is a really smart coat, particularly if you make it in a solid colour fabric. I would say its style is very classic as opposed to ‘on trend’ fashionable, if that makes sense, but then it was designed several years ago now. It can be worn with or without the detachable scarf to change up the look and you could even pair it with a scarf that you already own in a different colour to make it more versatile. It’s designed to be fairly fitted around the shoulder area and the darts give it a slightly more fitted look in the front but overall, its reasonably loose fitting. I can wear mine with a lighter weight jumper on underneath, but it is a bit snug in the sleeve if I wear a thicker jumper with bigger sleeves. I can see myself wearing it casually with jeans and trainers and also for more ‘dressy’ occasions.
Overall I would recommend the Chloe coat and the Sew Over It online class as a great introduction to sewing coats. If you are considering making your first coat, then the class really does hold your hand throughout the sewing process and offers you lots of skills to practice which will support you in multiple projects going forward. Making a coat is a bit of an undertaking, but I would say this one doesn’t take too long and having the online course break the steps down into manageable chunks really helps. I managed to get this done by grabbing various hours here and there over the course of a couple of weeks. Have you made the Chloe coat? If so, what were your thoughts?
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