Lullaby Layette Jacket as Coat

Analog 2019-12-05

Long enough ago that I have already forgotten the crucial details (i.e., in October), I made this blue wool coat using the Oliver and S Lullaby Layette Jacket pattern.

Blue raglan sleeve coat with gold buttons with right side flipped open to reveal white satin lining, red plaid facing, and blue hanging loop

The pattern, which I love and have made twice before (including a blogged rosebud version), is for a lightweight reversible jacket. To make a lined coat with it, I made some minor changes to the pattern and then did a bit of finagling. I used the 24M size of the pattern (top of the range), per the recipient’s measurements. In retrospect, I should have sized up beyond that.

These changes included adding an extra 5/8 inch on all of the pattern piece edges that are finished with bias binding in the original pattern, so that I would be able to bag the lining. I also drafted a facing piece for the front edge, swapped the snaps out for buttons and bound buttonholes (using the excellent Threads video tutorials in the Teach Yourself to Sew series), underlined the outer fabric with wool quilt batting, and added a loop out of self fabric for hanging the coat and ribbon loops in the sleeves (not visible) for tying on mittens. Since I was extremely low on blue fabric, I wound up using a contrasting red plaid fabric for the facing. (This somewhat defeats the point of a facing, but it is so cute!) For the same reason, I pieced the sleeves.Front view of cobalt blue coat with raglan sleeves and golden buttons

I also attempted to draft a neck facing at the outset, but I put that aside after a lot of headscratching about seam allowance and sleeve darts. Once I had the lining and the outer coat assembled, I made a small strip of bias tape out of the blue wool and attached it to the neck edge of the lining as an ad hoc facing. As you can see in the photo below, I even covered part of the plaid facing with it. On a full-size coat, this approach could have been disastrous, but with small clothing, the problems are smaller too!

Front view of blue coat, opened to reveal red plaid facing, white satin lining, and blue wool hanging loopI am very pleased with the results, especially since this was my first time doing bound buttonholes and bagging a lining. However, my favorite aspect of the project was the materials. The outer fabric is a midweight blue wool (not a coating) from Scraps and Skeins, my local fabric reuse thrift store (which I highly recommend if you are ever in Central PA). The buttons are also from Scraps and Skeins and were selected by the coat recipient. The lining is a white synthetic satin that I picked up as a remnant years ago and was leftover from another project. The wool batting (Quilter’s Dream wool) for the underlining was the only new thing I purchased for this project. The red plaid for the facing is also a wool, similar in weight to the blue. It comes from a thrifted Woolrich skirt (hello again, Pennsylvania!) that I made over for myself quite a while ago and still wear often.

After this coat, I made a pair of mittens from the Oliver and S Little Things to Sew book out of the scraps of the blue and plaid wools. The only scraps left of either fabric now are unusuably small and will go into my scraps-for-stuffing bag. A triumph!

Back view of cobalt blue coat with raglan sleeves