Week 17 – An experiment gone right

I’m so excited to tell you about this week’s project.

I order clothes from time to time from Wantable and Stitch Fix. A couple of months ago a box from Wantable showed up with a top that was exactly like McCall’s M7199 View A. The top/jacket was made of knit and it was cute but the fit wasn’t quite right. They wanted almost $70 for the top, so for me it was a hard no.

I was walking through JoAnn Fabrics and I came upon this beautiful high end polar fleece that basically screamed, I need to be a coat. Not being one that can argue with such logic I put it in my cart, but I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of coat it wanted to be. I looked through patterns but nothing was really meeting the vision until I found this pattern. The problem of course was that this pattern is drafted and fit to be made out of knits. Knits and polar fleece aren’t exactly interchangeable so the problem then became, can I make this work?

McCall’s M7199 View A, Size 16 in the body and 22 in the arms

I normally wear a size 14 in all major pattern company patterns. I decided I’d cut the body in a size 16 and I did a size 22 in the arms, I know that seems nuts. The pattern didn’t have the arms getting larger by very large increments and I was very afraid it would be too tight in the arms if I wasn’t aggressive with them. The result is to die for.

This was a very interesting pattern to assemble and I made some mistakes but even with those I forged forward and my mistakes worked out. I’m actually really wanting to make it again because how I put the zipper on isn’t right but tearing stitches out on this fabric was near impossible. The pattern wasn’t drafted or designed for fabric with this kind of structure, but the result of the neck line is amazing.

I’m so glad I went out on a limb and tried this. It’s so exciting when something surpasses your expectations.

I’ve had several people say, “I want one!” There are approximately 7-9 hours of labor in this coat from cutting out the pattern to completion. I think I could whip it up a little faster next time but not by much.

The top stitching is amazing, it fits amazing, and it’s so cozy. This project is a 10 out of 10 for me. The best part was figuring out how to assemble the neckline and front. It was so unique and fun.

Some photos during construction.