I don’t think there is a piece of outerwear more representative of fall than the cape coat. It speaks to chilly autumn afternoons or cozy evenings, when all one desires is to be surrounded by a cloak of warm, tartan fabric. Okay maybe the tartan part is specific to me, but you know what I mean.

Despite my many years of sewing, I have only attempted the cape coat once before, and it was a short version in a fall boucle fabric. It turned out well, but ever since then I have wanted to try another longer, fuller version - a true cape shape. When I started to get serious about making this project, I found that I liked versions that had a blazer style collar on them. Here was my inspiration…

To achieve this look, I decided to combine two patterns that I already owned. The first for the coat base is Simplicity # , and the second for the collar is Burda # .

The New Look pattern is no longer in print, but there are countless cape coat patterns out there from other companies that are very similar and would also work.

The fabric I chose to work with is a medium-weight wool, with a tartan print in a fairly neutral shade of grey-green. If you’ve been following my other posts you know that I’m deeply obsessed with tartans of all kinds, and completely unashamed about it!

I’m going to take a quick moment here to admit something to you…I machine wash all of my wool fabric! (*insert horrified gasps here)

I do this before I cut the fabric, because I want to see how the fabric is going to react to normal machine washing. In my every day life I do not take clothes to a drycleaner (who does? really??), and prefer to wash clothes in the machine with cold water, and hang to dry if necessary. So to my way of thinking, why not do this right away and find out if the fabric is going to fall apart or have a horrible reaction? I’d rather find that out before making something out of it than after I have put all the time and effort into making it into a garment.

I will also tell you that I have yet to have a piece of wool fabric fall apart from this process. Usually all that happens is it becomes a bit softer, and sometimes a little fuzzier. I can live with that.

So after washing this fabric I worked on cutting out the pattern pieces.

In order to combine the two different patterns, the only real alteration I had to make to the coat pieces was to shape the front facing pieces of the coat like the blazer front facing pieces. This was a very easy change, and then I simply had to use the collar top from the blazer pattern.

The wool is heavy enough that I decided not to line the coat. This will allow me to use it as a medium-weight outdoor coat, or a heavy weight cardigan-type layer indoors come winter. I did add tailor’s canvas interfacing to the collar and the front facing though, which will keep the front structure looking sharp.

Overall this project came together quite quickly, but I will admit that I’m not sure if it’s done.

Here it is in all of it’s current, fall loving glory.

You may notice that there is no closure on the front. I honestly couldn’t decide between buttons or some other kind of closure, and if buttons than what color and style? Also, should it be double breasted like the inspiration photo, or a single closure? The cape is completely wearable as is, so I decided that instead of making a snap decision that I may regret, I would wear it for a while and see what I thought. Maybe it doesn’t need a closure at all?

I’d love to hear what you think!

Either way I’m very happy with this piece, and I’m already enjoying parading around in it and living out all of my fall cape coat fantasies.

If you wanted to try this project with it’s original collar design, and in some kind of fleece fabric, it would be a very manageable beginner’s piece that you would get plenty of wear out of. You could also make the front one piece instead of 2 pieces with an opening, allowing it to sleep right over the head.

Either way I think you would have fun with this. If you try it I’d love to see your results!

With or without a cape coat I hope you’re enjoying these last bits of fall. Until next time friends, happy sewing!

~Amanda

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