The Most-Worn Coat: Marfy 3178

We’re buried under two feet of snow here in Washington this weekend, which feels like a perfect excuse for not doing anything too active. Lately, I’ve been spending my down time allocated for sewing-related things on actual sewing instead of taking photos and blogging. But I’m not feeling the sewing room after cutting out three separate garments yesterday.

So! I have this long-finished, much-worn project to show off.

I made this last March (March!) in a fit of holy-sh*t-I-am-over-winter-if-I-see-anymore-winter-colors-I-will-barf. But being March, I still needed a coat, even if I didn’t need my heaviest winter coat anymore.

So, I took this Marfy pattern out of storage. It was purchased back when I hadn’t been sewing long enough to understand how much hubris it took to buy a Marfy pattern and was seduced by this line drawing.

I mean, that cape. And her attitude.

It has raglan sleeves and princess seams, vertical darts above the bust, and a two-piece sleeve. I did not make the cape.

I’d actually made an attempt at this coat when I really, really didn’t know what i was doing. There might’ve been some $3/yd polyester metallic boucle that went unlined and unquilted involved. Needless to say, that version was trashed.

Let’s first acknowledge the obvious: I probably picked the wrong size. I used a 44. I’m gradually coming around to sizing down to account for short-person shoulders, then adjusting up for the bust. But, you know, that was then and I picked a 44. This is most visible in the shoulder area in the side shot above, and that’s after I petite-ized the whole thing by using a larger seam allowance on the shoulder/arm seam of the two-piece raglan sleeve. If I made it again, I might actually consider just using the pattern pieces as-is (Marfy don’t come with seam allowances, you have to add them in.) That would reduce the size a bit all around. Thoughts on that hack?

I did take a bit of length out of the pattern, though, and so I am a little surprised that the pockets are so low. They aren’t really comfortable for shoving my hands in because the bottom of the pocket bag is lower than where my hands fall. Luckily, this is more of a 50 degree weather coat so that’s not so critical.

The fabric also feels a bit weird. It was a wool/nylon blend, and the fibers are soft and feel felted. I sort of thought this would mean it was a good coat weight. It isn’t in the sense that I was hoping. The fabric is actually fairly thin, despite the felted feeling of the fibers, and the interfacing I used wasn’t beefy enough to give it the support I meant for it to have. So the whole coat is a bit drapier than I’d been intending (Which I think is visible below). I was a bit disappointed with it, so I didn’t take photos right away and didn’t blog it right away (obviously. it’s like 10 months later).

But.

This coat is great, and it is my most worn coat. Because it’s thin, it’s actually a great weight for the long-lasting spring and fall we have in the Mid-Atlantic, and I wore it a lot both seasons in the past year. So! Here it is, in testimony to the fact that even disappointing makes can turn out for the best.

**Also, patience with the photo coloration please! I’m trying out a new way of trying to balance all those orange-y red tones in the brick. The blue of the coat is truest to real-life in that pocket photo, but the brick is way yellow. Photos are tough! I don’t know how you people do it.**