A new winter coat- Pepernoot Coat

Ever since the weather got cold, I have been determined that THIS winter will be the winter that I make a new winter coat. I have been wearing my current coat for 14 years since I bought it from Motherhood Maternity while pregnant with my oldest! I have been ready for a change for a long time. A year or so ago, I saw some online fabric that I like, but both the exterior and lining were about $15 a yard, plus shipping. I was not quite ready to spend that much on fabric (the patterns I had been looking at estimated 4 yards for the exterior and 3 for the lining). Then that fabric went out of stock. One option was to use the coating fabric sold at Joanns, which is a wool/poly combination, but I wasn’t thrilled with it.

So, when I saw that the fabric from So Sew English I wanted was in stock, AND on sale for $10, both the exterior and lining, I jumped on that! However, if I had waited about two days, they had a shop wide sale and I could have gotten it for $7/yd. Oh well! The exterior I bought is called hard shell and the lining is called super plush. Both are now out of stock and aren’t coming back, unfortunately. I’m really glad I was able to pick them up.

The pattern that I have been eyeing up for awhile is the Pepernoot Coat from Waffle patterns. I own some other winter coat patterns, but over the years I’ve determined that I want a longer coat, a zipper, and a hood, and that was tough to find in a PDF pattern before I discovered the Pepernoot Coat. A couple of things held me back. 1. I don’t like those pockets at all. 2. When I first looked at this pattern, I fit into the size range, but now I am a couple inches above the highest measurements for both bust and hip. I got over the first hesitancy when I saw that I could buy a pocket add-on (for a different pattern) and use that. So I bought the add-on. Being a bag designer, you would think I would be comfortable with pockets and could just improvise my own, but I wasn’t willing to do that for my first coat. I ended up making the welt pocket but I left out the zipper as I didn’t want to have zipper teeth rubbing against my hands. (My chalk marks are still visible, and it looks in the picture like there’s a big wrinkle in one corner, but that’s just the way it’s laying). This fabric did not hold a crease well, which affects the final look, but I’m still happy.

The second issue was size. I checked the finished measurements and thought that there was enough ease that I would be fine. However, the super plush is pretty thick. I decided to go for it but make a muslin of the lining. This was an interesting step. I made it out of some thin woven fabric, and it was good for helping me decide how much to shorten it for my height (5’1”). But the lining is cut larger than the exterior and then pleats are added. This is to help with ease of movement. I still don’t fully get this, it feels like some sort of weird Tardis effect! And I worried about thickness. The designer addresses this in a blog post. She mentions removing those pleats for thick linings. I wasn’t quite confident enough with my first coat to do this, but if I made it again I would remove the pleats on the sleeves.

This pattern is a lot of pages to print. The lining and exterior are separate files. I began with the lining for my muslin. I determined to take out 1/2” in the bodice and 1” in the skirt, plus 2” in the sleeves. This ended up fitting me perfectly. Sometimes when driving, I wish that I had not removed so much from the sleeves, because they ride up when I’m holding the steering wheel, but they are perfect in every other way. I made the lining very quickly. Then I decided that I needed something else. I didn’t want a simple black coat without any personality. If I’m going to spend around $100 on a fabric and pattern, then I want it to be striking! I decided to buy some piping. I bought this beautiful rayon piping. I’ve used it for stockings and love it. One downside is that it is not supposed to be machine washed. I hope it holds up over time! It has a lovely sheen. I used 5 yards for this pattern and had just a little left.

I’m really thrilled with the final result. It’s a little more “Gryffindor” looking than I expected, but oh well! The super plush fabric I used has a brushed side and a plush side. I used the plush side as the right side except on the hood, where I accidentally switched the direction (to be fair, the plush side is usually the wrong side). I should have picked out and redone the seams, but I didn’t.

I love everything about it. I had a ton of zippers to choose from (I bought some in bulk a couple years ago) but none with the right color tape. I went with a green tape, but thankfully you can’t really tell.

There is a ton of hand-hemming. If I were more experienced with outerware, I may have tried to “bag” the lining, which means machine sewing the hem and turning it right side out. I am not great at handstitching and this hard shell, which is pretty thick, was tough to stitch by hand. But the final result is beautiful and my meh stitching is invisible to anyone but me.

Oh, and I didn’t need four yards for the exterior. I used less than 3. For the lining, I used a little more than 2. My fabric was 58” wide. So if you have similar width fabric, I think you can get by with 3 yards of each.

I was going to try to get better photos outside, but after my husband snapped a photo of me in this that made me look like Hagrid, I decided bathroom selfies were a better bet! Any deficiencies in cleanliness I blame on my children who are in charge of cleaning it!

You can probably see that it’s a little awkward when I zip it all the way up. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be an oversized hood that would work better in a fabric with more drape. Or, since I’m at the top end of the size spectrum, sometimes I find weird drafting things in patterns where not everything translated well to the largest size. I’m not sure. I don’t like zipping it all the way up because the back of the metal zipper then rubs on my chin. There is no zipper guard behind the zipper. I might try adding one in the future if I made this again.

At first I thought this wouldn’t be warm enough. We were having a cold spell in the teens (Faranheit), and I wasn’t super comfortable wearing this outside on its maiden voyage. But last week we had a snowstorm and I shoveled snow afterwards. Even with 20 degree temperature and lots of wind, I was comfortable as I shoveled. I drive each week day morning to a 6:00 am class and I’ve been much more comfortable each morning in the car.

I would definitely recommend the Pepernoot Coat pattern. I think I will get many good years out of this coat.