Come Rain, Come Dinosaurs!

I finally, finally (!), managed to cut into the most expensive fabric that I’ve ever bought a long length of. This softshell fabric with dinosaurs has been hiding in my hoard since September 13, 2017 when I bought it at the Stoffenspektakel in Goes. The 13th of September 2020 was coincidentally the day that I started cutting out a new rain/fall coat. I only found this out when I went looking for the date when I bought the fabric and was pleasantly surprised.

On to the coat. The pattern is the Pattydoo Susan with optional add-ons of a concealed zipper in the hood and cuffs. One teeny, tiny problem with this pattern is that it is in German. My German is nearly non-existent. Why choose this pattern then? Well 1. Because it’s awesome and only 3 euro (HOW?!). 2. Google Translate exists and 3. They made an instruction video in which they show all the steps (still in German though). I hoped that with the video, I’d manage to figure out how to make this thing. So about 296 replays on – I kept repeating every second sentence they said to figure out what to do – and I have my coat!

Finished inside neckline and hanging loop, neck protection and hood snaps, concealed neck zipper, double sided zipper.

I’ve never made as many trips to sewing stores as I have done for this coat. That’s partially because I kept forgetting that I should bring the fabric if I wanted to colour match. I’ve gone for thread, and then for elastics, and then for velcro and then for zippers, and for more zippers and for cuffs and for the adjuster-things on the hood.. Let’s just say that the local shops must be fed up with me and my stupid German project. Anyway, once I’d gathered most of my materials, I had to start cutting into my precious fabric *Gollum noises*.

Hood with adjusters, hood back adjustment strap, concealed zipper and pieced center hood piece.

Once I had nearly all pieces cut out, I had about a meter of fabric with both selvages left. However, I also had a pattern piece that would need to go lengthwise and therefore would steal a further 40 ish centimeters from that rectangle, just by itself. For some reason I couldn’t bear the thought of cutting into my pristine fabric and therefore cut it from a bit that was too small. My hood thus has two extra seams in the top where I pieced the ‘Kapuzenstreifen’ together. It’s not noticeable at all, so I’m quite happy with this solution. Next to the hood thing, I only made minor changes to the pattern. These include a hacky swayback adjustment (taking in the back seams from armpit to waist by a up to 2 cm) and shortening the sleeves by 3.5 cm or so. Apart from that, I pretty much followed the movies exactly.

Pocket opening, pocket inside and sleeve cuffs.

While the pattern has pockets, they are quite shallow, so I can’t stuff them full of whatever my heart desires. This is unfortunatly a feature of the pattern since the pockets are set in the side front seam and extend to center front, which isn’t very far. However, the way they have you sew them in is ingenous. There’s a built in zipper and it is automatically concealed. I also really love the concealed zip at the neck so you can remove the hood. This version is much nicer than the one I cobbled together on my red coat.

All in all, I enjoyed working on the project. The cutting and sewing stage only took three days, but the gathering of materials and taping the pattern together added another couple of hours. I seamripped maybe three bits in total? The pattern itself is completely glorious in its markings that all fit together absolutely perfectly. I’d already bought another Pattydoo pattern for a sweater that may be jumping ahead in the queue a little. For now, I’ll just continue to swan about in my dinosaur coat and be quite proud of myself for finishing this thing!