I might have looked
at bit like a 6 year old celebrating her birthday when I got an email from Merchant & Mills a while back. They wanted to know if I'd be interested in receiving and reviewing a copy of their third book titled
'Workbook'. No need to think twice about that offer, am I right?!
Have you taken a look inside their
webshop? (If not, then don't - you'll be addicted).
I mean, look at all that gorgeous linen. Be still my beating heart! I want it all!
Once I received the book I needed to figure out what to make - where to start! This book is bursting with fantastic patterns. And the photos in the book. This is probably the most beautiful pattern book I've ever come across. Such fantastic garments and styling.
I ended up choosing the Haremere Coat and next browsed through
the suggested fabrics to find the perfect one for the summery version of the Haremere I had in mind. I decided on a European Laundered Linen in a blueish grey color. I believe it's called 'Silt' (if so the color is darker in real life than the one shown on the website).
Then the tracing and cutting. Based on the finished measurements I made a size M which is perfect. I'm a European size 40/42 (on a good day).
This pattern only comes in the short jacket version; you have to elongate the pattern pieces yourself to make the coat version. The book will show you how to do that. I must add that my elongated pattern pieces did not look exactly like the ones pictured in the book - but they worked fine for me anyway.
Then we have the notches. I'm a big fan of notches, but you will need to take an extra deeeeeeeep breath when tracing and cutting this baby, 'cause she has many pattern pieces and many, many, many notches. Notches for positions, notches indicating seam allowance, notches for matching - a lot. And they all look the same. To me that was a bit overwhelming and confusing to begin with, and I did not get all of them to match like they were supposed to - but I ended up with a gorgeous coat anyway with only a tiny bit of hair tearing and seam ripping.
I love how this coat is designed. It's not fully lined. The sleeves are lined, the front is not and the back has this beautiful overlapped neck lining. Beautiful.
Once I was done beeing notch intimidated the coat came together pretty easily. Every single step is very well described and illustrated with hand drawings. I did struggle a bit with the steps 28-30. Maybe it was me misunderstanding something or not doing proper notch matching, I'm not sure I did as exactly as suggested in those steps, but I got a pretty decent result anyway.
My coat is sans buttons. I might add snaps at some point - but I'm pretty sure I won't use them so why bother?!
I give to you, the slouchy linen Haremere Coat.
Thank you so much for letting me review this, Merchant & Mills. Now I'm off to finish my
Fielder dress - another newly released pattern from Merchant & Mills.
