Linen and Lining: Shadbelly

My 18-year old daughter has competed at dressage for years, and she asked me if I could make her a shadbelly. A what? you may ask. This is a dressage coat for those riders at higher levels. It has tails, it is double-breasted, with 'waistcoat' points, and it's based on the day coat worn by those super trendy men in the early-mid Victorian years.

My research brought up only one company selling ready-made patterns of these coats, Suitability, based in the US. I ordered this dressage and shad belly pattern and started my research into how to actually tailor.

As all I'd ever done was dressmaking, I thought the first step was an online course, so I purchased this jacket fitting course off Craftsy, which was fantastic. I know how to make toiles from my years of trial and error, but this course gave me some tried and true practices when fitting a toile, as well as confirmed some of the ways I'd figured out how to do things. The fitting process was ssslllllooooww as for some reason despite my commitment to making the jacket, my daughter never seemed to be around (or willing!) to stand for a fitting. It was very interesting adjusting the fit for her actually. I learned that she and I might look like clones, but our body shapes are entirely different. While I have to account for wide, straight shoulders for me, she has very sloping shoulders. While I add 1-2" to my length, hers needed reducing by 1". While my sleeve length never changes from the packet, hers needed cuffing at the maximum length possible. And yet we are the same height and wear the same size clothing. It teaches me how crucial toiles are for well-fitting tailored clothing.

Finally happy with the finished fit, I purchased another course, this time on modern jacket sewing techniques and took a trip to the fabric store. My daughter wanted to stray from the traditional colours of navy and yellow, and instead chose a colour scheme of grey and pink, which is a beautiful combination! The first fabric I chose was 100% wool, but I changed that to a wool/poly blend, as it is going to be getting lots of wear and tear in it's life, as well as downpours and horse-slobber, so I wanted something pretty hard-wearing. I lined it with a satin lining as the regular lining was just a bit too transparent. I was completely unfamiliar with the correct weights of fusible interfacing for jackets, but what I've used seems to work. I've decided I definitely need a new iron and ironing board. Suggestions welcome!

I'm pretty happy with the finished result. Yes, I did make one or two mistakes, and there are a few things I would do differently next time. Next time? When my daughter is riding Grand Prix, that is. The pattern was...ok, but not perfect. It seems to have completely omitted a couple of steps despite me reading, re-reading, re-re-reading to find it (how to complete the front and front facing waistline?), and I was definitely not happy with my working of the piped front - not one of my finest hours. However, it fits like a glove, it has all 20 buttons attached and all 14 button holes in working order, and most importantly, my daughter is happy with it. Tick.