Awesome coat of awesomeness

So I was on a wisdom-tooth-extraction-imposed sewing hiatus. I had recovered enough to start work on a light-weight coat and finish in time to take on a working weekend in the Barossa Valley. Yeah, my work is hard.

I am incredibly happy how this little coat turned out. It truly is one of the most awesome things I've made. Made from Butterick B5145 in a fairly lightweight wool flannel, it's fully lined and just fits perfectly.

A couple firsts for me on this one:

- First proper coat (I had attempted twice before to use shirt patterns to make light jackets with not terribly wonderful results)

- First fully-lined sleeve. All my lining attempts to date have been on skirts and sleeveless dresses.

- First bound buttonholes. And oh my, I think I'm hooked. They always looked so scary but I used the instruction form my 50s high school dressmaking textbook and they turned out wonderfully. A regular buttonhole just wouldn't have done this coat justice.

Another big firs was that I've noticed how much more willing I am to go back and fix little errors I would have let go in the past. I noticed after piecing together the whole front that the bust darts wasn't quite parallel. I probably would have left it in the past, but it was actually a really simple fix.

The set-in sleeves gave me problems too. The first attempt left waaaay to much ease, giving the shoulders far more puff that I wanted (or than was in the pattern illustrations). I've read lots of people complaining about some commercial patterns having far more ease in sleeves than is needed. This explains issues I've had with some other blouse patterns I've used. So I ran another stitch line across the shoulder, cutting about about 1" of ease at the apex and voila! Perfect, sharp shoulder without the shoulder pads called for in the pattern (I have a child-of-the-80s fear of shoulder pads).

The fit is so lovely and the full lining makes it so very nice to slip on (with navy and white polka-dot lining in the sleeves 'cause I ran out of navy!).

Oh yeah. And it has the most gorgeous buttons. And pockets. Pockets!!