coat: self-made, pattern here // dress: self-made, pattern here // leggings: ??? // boots: Hunters

Phew, I finally finished my Albion coat!

I had pinned this coat (yes, that would be a child’s coat) ages ago and then when the Albion pattern and sewalong were announced, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try to recreate it.

I will say though, for what was ultimately not that difficult of a coat pattern, I sure managed to make things incredibly unnecessarily difficult for myself.

First, I searched high and low for a navy and white striped canvas but only managed to find this one, which wasn’t quite thick enough. So instead of giving up and going with my second choice of a charcoal gray herringbone wool, I decided that I would just flatline it to give it more body. I went with this gorgeous anchor print (I was 50/50 on gray vs. yellow and I’m slightly kicking myself that I didn’t go with the gray..) and decided to add in some plain cotton flannel for warmth. Except that adding all these layers made it thicker than the original plain canvas would’ve been, so I had to kind of figure out which parts I would put together as though I was working version 1 (the lined coat) and which ones would make more sense using version 2’s techniques (the unlined jacket).

Plus, trying to match stripes when you haven’t used a pattern before is kind of difficult. I had to do a lot of guessing and luckily it worked out! I’m not sure why the front stripes aren’t matching up in the photos where it’s buttoned because they totally do. I think it’s because I’m standing slightly tilted and pulling it down on one side. Whoops.

I also decided to make things even more fun for myself and switched up the pocket flaps to match the inspiration coat more. I pretty much just added a point in the center and made the sides go up a little higher than the original rectangular ones would have.

I’d never made toggles before so I’m a little impressed that they actually worked out, although they turned out a little more wibbly than I would’ve liked. I bought some plain unfinished wooden toggle buttons and used some wood stain I had lying around to make them a darker chestnuty shade. I’d gotten some cord for the middle but it turned out to be too thin so I twisted it together in a rope braid and added that. Then I just cut out ovals from a sheet of leather and punched two studs in each and attached them to the coat. And lastly, for the sleeve tabs, I used some wooden buttons (which I forgot to photograph, whoops!) that were gifted to me a few years ago that I’d been saving for something special.

I also made a dress, because for whatever reason I decided that this coat would look really cute with a white lacy dress, except that I didn’t own a white lacy dress. So I made one. I did another Laurel hack (see my first one here) except instead of making it drop-waisted, I went a little high waisted instead. I’ll do another post on that one soon.

But yayy! I made a coat!