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Patrones magazine 342

While we were in Argentina in August, I kept my eyes peeled for Patrones issues whenever we passed a newsagent. It didn’t take long before I found this one on a newstand in Mar del Plata (and 343, which I already own), likely from last winter but who cares? Patrones do the best coat patterns, and this is a Coats Special!! I’ve made so many of theirs in in the past, most notably my winter coat (still my main winter coat several years later!), the silver tweed jacket I throw on in summers, and my duffle coat, which I wore until it was literally in tatters. I’ve got some wool coating burning a hole in my stash right now, so it’s likely I’ll look to Patrones for this coat, too.

I was mostly drawn to the top, but the Armani blazer is also worth a note for its razor-sharp lapels! On first glance, the top has a shape very similar to a lot of other patterns (like that Lekala top I made a few years back) but a closer look reveals it’s actually got two layers – a satin layer underneath and a gauze layer on top.

This menswear-inspired sheath dress would be a great alternative to the clichéd skirt suit for business meetings! Apart from the curved waist seaming, I love the waist-lapel – it feels more like a blazer than a peplum (which we’re all so over by now, right?). This also reminded me of Charity Shop Chic’s recent spectacular Dior-inspired refashion, too.

Ok, now on to the coats feature, and, ignoring the bubblegum pink colour, I just love this dolman sleeved cocoon coat! It fastens with a hidden zipper placket and only uses 2m of wool, which is conveniently the exact amount of my navy wool coating… This is now top of my list to muslin!

Patrones magazine 354

My inlaws were visiting Spain last month, and I’ve got them so well trained that I don’t even need to ask anymore – they just keep an eye out for Patrones magazine and buy it for me if they see it! They weren’t even phased by the redesigned logo on this one (that’s literally the only change I can see, so that’s kinda odd), and I’m so pleased they grabbed it, because it’s this year’s Coats Special!

If I’m being honest, this Coats Special didn’t grab me quite as much as last year’s, but I did find a lot of interesting details in coats that didn’t otherwise excite me, like the coat from the magazine cover which has an interesting tie/slide closure.

I’m not sure how many parts of Spain warrant a full length, long coat like this, but I know many places in Northern Europe where a coat like this would make wearing dresses bearable in winter!

Out of the way, fur gilet! You’re covering up all the interesting seam lines in the shirt!

My favourite for this entire issue is definitely this asymmetric draped shirt (though the tech drawing is wrong at shoulders when you compare it to the pattern pieces). The hip pleating would require some really precise pattern marking, but I think this would be just stunning in a silk satin for a different Christmas party look…

Named Harriet lumberjacket in wool & vintage silk

I am both back from our trip to the States and feeling back on form now, so I’ve started to tackle documenting the absolute mountain of finished makes from the last four months. I have some garments from early January, some made more recently and well, I’m just going to share them with you in no particular order! The photos are a bit more slapdash than usual, but I know that if I waited to do proper photoshoots of all of these then it’d be another 6 months before you’d get to see them!

So I’m going to start with a garment that was the longest in the planning, and also quite possibly my favourite of the early 2016 makes. It all started back in summer 2014, when I bought some fabulous navy wool coating & vintage silk twill from Ditto when I was down in Brighton. I knew I wanted to use them together for a transitional, short coat, but then I had quite a journey in finding the right pattern!


The psychedelic 1960s vintage silk twill lining that was originally made for neckties!

Over the course of 18 months, I ended up making five different muslins before I was happy enough to cut into the wool and silk:

  1. StyleArc Audrey (the silhouette and proportions were just so bad on me. So bad.)

  2. Burda Jan 2015 jacket in size 42 (way too small for non-stretch outerwear, oddly, though Burda’s fit is usually very standard)

  3. Burda Jan 2015 jacket in size 44 (traced ALL the pieces again and it still fit very weirdly)

  4. Patrones 342 No23 dolman sleeve coat (ridiculously tiny sleeves and zero arm mobility even with the underarm gusset)

And then finally I muslined Named’s Harriet lumberjacket pattern, bought during a flash sale during their advent calendar promotion. And I was like Goldilocks, it was juuuuuuust riiiiiight.