Horse coat vintage pattern refashion - Butterick 2457





Hi, decided to kick off this blog with one of my more epic refashion projects of this year. Sneaking in just in time to fulfil my resolution to actually start this blog before years end, and getting my vintage pattern pledge entry in!

This is a tale of lucky multiple Salvation Army findings all aligning:

The horse fabric I found perusing my local Sallies (as I'm want to do) I nearly walked past this coat twice given how extremely borderline amazing/awful it was. I finally saw its potential under all the crazy blanket stitching as a coat of epic proportions for my sister.




The pattern was found while away visiting family, perusing yet another Sallies (yes it's a bit of an obsession), I discovered a goldmine of vintage patterns, among them was Butterick 2457 - stars aligned!



Moments of insanity

As this was a refashion and I was going to change the shape drastically, the coat needed to be completely deconstructed, unfortunately I soon discovered... Every. Single. Seam. Was. Stitched. Serged. And. Decoratively. Blanket. Stitched... I actually blunted a unpicker through this! all I can say is thank goodness for Netflix!


Another fun puzzle to fix was the years of built up dust/tissues/misc grossness left behind from the pockets, after some trial and error the fix was some gentle brushing with a toothbrush and lots of steam


Sewing collar seams at 5/8 instead of 1/4... not realising until it was serged...

Cutting it down to the line putting the final stitches in the night before getting on a plane visit/deliver this to Ju

Finally trying it on Ju and finding out the coat was 2 inches too long... then finding the tiniest machine ever to take it up with

Adjustments to the pattern

I started with a muslin as given the limited material there was some fandangling required to make the pattern work, changes I made

  • Sleeves - Added cuff  as didn't have enough fabric to cut it as one piece, narrowed sleeves also due to fabric shortage

  • Body - Narrowed - again fabric restrictions - although this coat was originally designed to go over a dress and petticoat so I do think the final width would have been a bit much and collapsed in unless you added something to "puff" it out

  • Added welt pockets - the original coat had two small internal welts, given the placement I couldn't cut around and couldn't disguise them tastefully, so decided to work with them - cut the jacket so they fell at the correct height and widened them to suit.

  • Added hidden dome down the bottom - the pattern only calls for 3 buttons, but that left things a little drafty, 4 buttons was too much aesthetically, so a hidden dome was the magic.

  • Bagged the lining instead of the suggested method that would have involved hand-stitching the whole hem?!



Overall

Pretty stoked with the final product and my first foray into vintage patterns. Moments of insanity aside, it all came together pretty well and most importantly Ju loves it.


Comments

  1. Happy new year and welcome to the blogging world, you'll enjoy it Hils, this coat is amazing, despite the ups and downs during the construction it's a project to be proud of as you've made a unique garment! Looking forward to reading your next posts!

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  2. This is AMAZING!! Not only is the final coat absolutely beautiful but the amount of work that went into is stupendous!

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  3. Wow! What a great vision come to life! Really neat to see your start to finish, and the less glamorous parts, too (I'm looking at you, old tissue dust).

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  4. It's absolutely gorgeous! Well worth the work!
    And really excited to see more :)

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  5. Looking forward to following your sewing adventures. I'm determined to sew and blog more this year and loving the inspiration I'm getting g from blogs.

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  6. You did it! I'm so glad you've started the blog and you're first project is a huge success. The coat looks awesome!! Elvira

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  7. Thanks Elvira! Haha yeah finally!

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  8. […] the sleeves I used some Kasha lining left over from the Horse Coat. I tend to wear the same dresses all year round with the addition of thick tights and slips. […]

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