Rya Coat and matching beret

Hello fellow February sewers!

Today I'm here to show my Rya Coat, by Fibre Mood patterns.

Fibre Mood patterns seem to be pretty ubiquitous in my Instagram feed when they are releasing new patterns, and many of the sewers I follow made lovely Rya Coats. This shape seems popular in RTW at the moment, and I've seen many a jaunty version on the Brighton promenade this winter. (Regrettably, they also seem to be referred to as "shackets", but that's a portmanteau too far/annoying for my liking.)

I downloaded and assembled the pdf and bought and washed my wool from Minerva, then this project languished for quite a while, which was down to some fear - of Fibre Mood's quite minimal instructions, of working with wool coat fabric and of having to pattern match (dreaded).

 

But once I got my nerve up, it was really smooth sailing. Despite lack of hand-holding from FM, this was a simple construction, and I think a nicely drafted one too. My only errors resulted from my woeful bias binding (SO messy - avert thine eyes!!!) and my choice of thinner fabric for the pockets - everything else turned out peachy. I made a size 38 with no adjustments - and I'm really happy with the fit, which can contain my thickest sweater underneath. It's meant to be oversized, and perhaps I could even go up one if I ever made it again... I wouldn't do a full coat again, but I saw a version by bisforbryanna hacked into a bomber, which looks excellent and is something I'm thinking about.

Pleasing scoop hem at the sides - classic shacket move.

Looking at my button placement (buttons from Textile Garden), I could wish I'd spaced them evenly throughout the patterned squares. I was very pleased with my pattern-matching but buttons in the middle would've looked even swankier! But I'm really happy with this coat, which isn't warm enough for the coldest days, but brilliant for the in-betweens, and which I think looks really smart.

Finally, with my leftover fabric, I had a go at making a matching beret. I'll make a quick post about this next time, as I think it's an easy scrap buster, and who doesn't want a beret to match every outfit?

Thank you for reading, until soon!