On a Christmas Coat Dress!

Somewhere early on in my pattern buying I purchased McCall 9130, but it ended up being one of those patterns that I've skipped over time and time again because of the amount of fabric involved and the fact that it's primarily made up of four giant pieces, which doesn't leave much room for error.

Looking at some fabric I had been given along with the fabric I used for last year's Christmas dress (apparently November and December are my months to conduct sewing experiments) and being in the mood to attempt some pattern grading and alterations I finally decided to give it a go this month and ended up being very pleased with the results. 

My primary alterations involved taking it in by about two inches to make it smaller, adding a lining and, most noticeably, shortening it to right below the bottom button.

Now, I'm guessing the reason that this was meant to be an "unlined coat" is based on the sleeves and how the underarm curves wouldn't necessarily match on both layers, but my outer fabric was so thin I fortunately didn't have any noticeable bunching and it ended up working out really well. What didn't work was that in cutting out the pieces and eliminating the facing section (which was part of the overall front piece) I left the seam allowance off.  This meant having to go through the extra step of adding bias tape to both front pieces to close it off, but I actually really like the way it looks with the bias tape, so it didn't end up being that big of a mistake.

Happy to have been able to use some of the buttons from my grandma's button box!

My other foolish mistake, due to working on this over a period of a few weeks and just not thinking, was failing to baste on the interfacing before cutting my button holes. It made things a little more complicated, since I then had to deal with cutting through the lining layer and interfacing and probably took away extra support for the bound buttonholes on the front piece. As I'll probably only wear this a few times a year, though, I'm also counting this as being a rather minor thing, since at least I did get the interfacing in and pretty much everything else went smoothly.

While I referred to it as my Christmas coat while I was working on it, I get the feeling that I'll really be wearing it more as a dress, since it pairs well with leggings, so for now I'm happy to call it my Christmas coat dress!

♥ 🎄 ♥