Maker Inspo: Genevieve Coat in Viscose Wool Coating

This winter was a chilly one, so I wanted a new winter coat for my commute. I work in person at Spool & Spindle 3-4 days a week, fulfilling orders. That’s a cold bike ride in the winter, even if it is only 10 minutes from my house!

The Viscose Wool Coating is perfect for a winter coat (sorry, at time of writing we are all out of this fabric, but hopefully we will have more for winter!) It’s warm and tough, with a semi-felted almost bouclé finish. I wanted to line it, since wool is a little scratchy, so I used Lightweight Viscose Crepe. It’s not quite as smooth as a typical satin lining, but it’s very comfy.

For a pattern, I chose the asymmetrical delight that is the Genevieve Jacket by Style Arc. It is nice and long, to protect my bum from the cold bike seat, and it has a really cool-looking cowl neck that can be worn open or closed, for extra warmth.

You may notice that this is not a lined coat pattern. But the overall construction (skipping the cowl neck) is fairly basic, so it wasn’t too complicated to add a lining. I found a few tutorials before starting, including Grainline Studio’s How to Bag a Jacket Lining Tutorial and Professor Pincushion’s How to Sew a Lining in a Jacket Video.

Since I didn’t need the design lines on the lining, I started by taping together the top and bottom pattern pieces for the back and sleeve. For the front, I modified the Left Front pieces to join together at the back of the neck and fill in the front just past the edge of the facing. The two sides of the lining both use the Left Front pieces, since the cowl part is not lined.

I assembled the coat entirely, except the bottom hem, and assembled the lining too. Then I attached the lining all the way around the facing, inside out. At the underarm seam, I tacked the sleeve lining to the outer sleeve selvedge, to keep it from moving around too much.

 

 

 

As the tutorials suggest, I added a bit of width to all the pieces, so they wouldn’t stretch the outer layer. Unfortunately, I also added a bit too much length to the sleeve, so the lining tends to poke out at the cuffs. We can’t always be perfect.

The fit is really good, but it doesn’t have a lot of extra space. On the coldest days, a big sweater combined with a large scarf makes the jacket a little tight. So in hindsight, I’d maybe make one size bigger than my measurements suggest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is, the finished product! Yes, I knit the hat years ago, but doesn’t it go perfectly as if I planned it?