The Tropical Dilemma

It always happens around this time of the year.

Northern hemisphere winter = coats, coats, coats!
Every magazine and every style/shopping website is stuffed to the gills with delicious wools! nubbly tweeds! fluffy cashmeres! ooh!

iwantiwantiwantiwant!

But living in Singapore = no need for coats. Permanent summer, 'winter' temperature (Nov-Jan, around now) of 26 degC (80 degF)!

Augh. What is a girl to do?

Improvise, that’s what :)

I tried sewing up this coat pattern in summer-weight fabric. It was by far the most complicated garment I’ve tried. The ‘Easy’ label on the package is completely misleading - such a lot of pattern pieces, and a completely un-skippable lining! Hello Vogue patternists! What on earth were you thinking??

I originally intended for this chocolate broadcloth to be a muslin, but was too lazy to sew it up again so happy with how it turned out, that I thought this would be IT. Since I was hardworking and lined my muslin and all.

So I added blue top-stitching and rick-rack. I adore rick-rack! Although I've found precious few occasions to use it without looking juvenile.

Plus I dug out my precious baby-blue vintage buttons...which mysteriously faded in the sun/washing machine, after just one wash. Grr.

I could do with the brown being just a touch darker, and swingier, and drapier (i.e. generally a lot woollier), but eh... it didn’t turn out all that bad. I do rather like that back pleat :)

Adjustments:
Shortened the sleeves and hem by an inch, as usual. No round-tummy adjustment needed on this one.

Fabric:
Brown broadcloth and some thickish black acetate/polyesterish thing for the lining (it was $1.50/metre from a garment boutique, and the shop girl gave me a giant blank look when I asked her about the composition).