Pilvi Coat No. 2 – Lotta Jansdotter Everyday Style

Hi! I finished my Pilvi Coat just in time to wear it to a publishing conference for women last week. I thought the fabric was appropriate for the event and because it was March, women’s history month. The pattern is from the sewing book Lotta Jansdotter Everyday Style (affiliate link). This is my second Pilvi Coat. I blogged about my first one here.

My first Pilvi Coat was size L. I decided to make one this one size XL because I felt the other one was a little tight in the arms and thought I could use a little more ease in the shoulders. (There’s also a shorter hip-length version of the Pilvi in the book.)

I got four yards of this wonderful bottom-weight cotton fabric at Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics. It has a touch of lycra in it. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was destined to be a Pilvi Coat. It shows off the fabric design very well. design is ASCII art – created using letters and characters to create images.

The Pilvi Coat pattern requires three yards of fabric. I had an extra yard to give myself flexibility in pattern placement. Unfortunately, the fabric is no longer available but they have a variation of this design in an other fabric a knit fabric. [My mistake, I thought it was a knit.] It has a grey background but the faces are in a smaller scale. Update: Stonemountain tells me that the sister fabric is a cotton/poly/rayon jacquard and that it also comes in peach! So you can get something similar but the faces aren’t as big.

I was very careful in my pattern placement. I placed each pattern piece individually so I could decide where I wanted certain faces on the coat. I mainly wanted the women with the sunglasses at the top of the front and the back of the coat.

The back is supposed to be cut on the fold. But I traced the back pattern piece on the right side of the fabric so I could see where the design would go and then I flipped it over and traced the other side. I wanted the sunglass lady to at the top of the center back. (Please excuse the wrinkles! I wore it all day at the conference and didn’t press it before taking these photos.)

I finished the facing edges with black bias tape. Then I stitched in the ditch all the way around from the bottom edge all around the neckline and down the other side. I finished the hem with some off-white bias tape in my stash and machine-stitched it in place. I hand stitched the hem on my first Pilvi coat because I didn’t want to see any topstitching. With this coat, the stitches blend into the design.

I didn’t bother with matching the design at the side or sleeve seams. The design is so large, I don’t think it matters. When I placed the pattern pieces for the sleeves, I just wanted faces anywhere on the sleeves.

I’m wearing a vintage hat with a veil. There was a slight breeze so the veil wouldn’t stay in place. Here I am trying to hold it down. This is one of my favorite hats but I don’t often wear the veil down.

I’m also wearing a tunic I made (Draped Mini Dress from Japanese sewing book She Wears the Pants). My pants and camisole are RTW. The sun was really bright so I’m wearing a pair of vintage Vuarnet sunglasses from the 1980s. The big lenses go well with the ladies on my fabric. My lipstick is Ruby Woo by Mac. I got the bracelet from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the necklace from Macy’s and the Pikolinos flats are from a shoe store in San Francisco. You can also get the shoes on Amazon. They are the Pikolinos Puerto Vallarta Mary Jane Sandal (affiliate link).

Pilvi Coat construction details

You can really see the ASCII art in these photos.

Here’s the inside front. I finished the raw edges with bias tape and stitched in the ditch.

I didn’t use any bias tape on the side seams or sleeve seams because I didn’t have time to get more or to sew it in place. Instead, I finished those edges with a curving stitch on my sewing machine. This fabric has a tendency to unravel so I may also go over those edges with my pinking scissors.

If I had more black bias tape I would have used that to finish the bottom hem. I had this off-white bias tape so I used that on the hem and top stitched. It matches the design of the fabric.

This is the fabric I used for my pocket bag. It was left over from this dress I made in 2011.

Pilvi Coat Details

• Size XL of Pilvi Coat – no changes to pattern pieces except I made the pocket bag one inch deeper and moved pocket placement up 2 inches (~5 cm)
• 4 yards heavyweight cotton fabric with a little lycra (3.5 yards was probably enough for this design)
• Gutterman polyester thread – black (no. 10)
• Schmetz 70/10 needle
• No interfacing because fabric was heavyweight
• Construction changes – instead of folding over raw edges of hem and facing, I finished edged with bias tape. For sleeve hems, I used seam tape and hand stitched in place.

I like this pattern and I’m sure I’ll make another one – perhaps in a fabric that isn’t so heavy. It doesn’t lay as flat around the neckline, which could also be because size XL is just a little too big there. The catch is that if you use a fabric with more drape, the front corners will droop unless you give them extra reinforcement.

One last thing for my Northern California readers – Bay Area Sewists is holding a Sew Together, Fitting + Demo meetup on Saturday, April 8 in Berkeley at Lacis. There’s still one place left for one attendee and one member can no longer make it and is selling her $20 ticket. We’ll have two people with a lot of fitting experience on hand to help people fit their patterns and mockups. Beth of SunnyGal Studio will be show how to convert bust darts into shoulder gathers.

Plus we’ll have a couple of raffle prizes at this meetup – an issue of UK sewing magazine Love Sewing + patterns and a free class valued up to $50 at CourseHorse. You’ll find crafting classes in San Francisco on this site, which is a discovery and booking tool for local classes. CourseHorse is still in beta mode for San Francisco. More classes will be coming soon so you may want to sign up with your email address to receive more info when classes are live.