#SewMyStyle2018 Estelle

Hi there! Hope everything’s good with you?

Today I want to share my make for this month’s Sew My Style challenge. There were actually two patterns to pick from this month: the By Hand London Rumana coat and the Style Arc Estelle.

The Rumana is a thing of beauty, the perfect classic tailored coat. Obviously I bought the pattern as soon as the discount codes were announced.

But.

I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with all the non sewing stuff going on this month and I also wanted to sew from my stash as much as possible, so I was a little hesitant to commit to a big make like this.

Which is where Estelle comes in. This transitional coat/cardigan is designed for ponte or other stable knits; it has a gorgeous waterfall collar and neither the collar, cuffs or hem are designed to be finished at all. Sounds like a quick stash sew to me!

I dithered a little between the grey ponte I had in my stash and this teal ponte (scuba? Definitely very man made and very smooth but with great drape) which I had forgotten but found when rummaging through boxes for the grey.

I slept on it and then went with the teal; why go subtle?

This was an incredibly easy make to pull together. Conscious of the lack of finishing on a lot of the edges, I took a little more time with my rotary cutter when cutting out, making sure the edges were as smooth as possible.

I then discovered that I had no matching thread 😱 Remember I do most of my sewing when the kids are in bed so I couldn’t just pop up the road to Hobbycraft. In the end I decided that a deep blue was close enough in tone and went with that.

I did all the sewing on my normal machine, using my walking foot and a ballpoint needle. I’d normally use my overlocker but decided I needed to be a little careful about seam allowances on this one. As per the instructions, I topstitched down the centre back seam and the neck seam. I also stitched the seam allowances down onto the pocket bags before sewing the side seams as I thought they may well be visible when the jacket was on and so wanted them nice and neat.

I added some bar tacks as suggested at the top and bottom of each pocket. I also stitched just a little of the side seam down at the bottom to make sure there was no break in that nice, smooth bottom hem.

The whole thing was done in under 2 hours which is definitely what I needed this week. And I’m surprised how much I like it!

I can see this being great to throw on when it’s warmer as a jacket but for today, it’s working as a long cardi over skinny jeans and a turtle neck top for taking the littlest girl to birthday parties; comfy but a little more stylish!

This was also my first use of Style Arc Patterns. I should mention that, when you buy these as PDF’s, you get three separate files; the size you pick and the size above and below that. I’m not too sure how easy it would be to blend between sizes in that way, but thankfully I didn’t need to here.

Thanks for the discount code on this, I’m really enjoying it!

Did you join in this month?

Becca x

Details

Pattern Style Arc “Estelle”

Fabric stashed ponte/scuba type knit

My measurements

Bust 35″

Waist 31″

Hips 40″

Size cut 10

Adjustments made none

Future adjustments none

Make again? Maybe? It’s a lovely jacket, it’s just one of those where I don’t know that I need multiple versions in my wardrobe. Never say never though!