Jen's Tamarack Society Jacket

If you've been following along with us for a while, you'll remember back in September 2018 when we started the Tamarack Society Sew-Along. I had grand plans of turning our Tamarack Jacket pattern into a long coat inspired by an Isabel Marant jacket I'd fallen in love with a few seasons earlier. I started the jacket straight away after posting but it soon stalled out amongst my other work. It's hard to sew for fun when it's also your job because whether you want it to or not, everything for work takes precedence. Well it took me a year to finish the jacket (I set a deadline for the end of 2019 and stuck to it) and another 2.5 months to blog it but it is done and posted!

To recap, here's the actual Tamarack pattern, my inspiration image, and a list of the adjustments I knew I'd need to do. I'll be talking more about those on Wednesday in part 2 of this post but this way you can get an idea of the journey to this final coat. I did end up doing each of these adjustments and that was it, nothing unexpected came up which was a nice surprise!

I love this grid of photos because you can really see the coat from every angle – including inside! Every seam allowance on this coat is bound and stitched down which makes for a very neat inside. I copied the stitching pattern from the Isabel Marant coat as well as I could and I think it looks pretty great. The coat closes with 6 oversized snaps on the bodice which are very secure. I wish I had a photo of the coat before I gave it a few runs through the washing machine and dryer because it was soooo stiff! It was actually pretty hilarious.

I absolutely love how this coat came out! I feel great wearing it and it's really comfortable and due to our unseasonable winter I've actually gotten a fair amount of use out of it. It's about to go into heavy rotation once things start warming up a bit more. 

I know a lot of you have questions about how I altered the pattern to make this version and I'll be talking more about that on Wednesday, so pop back over for that post then.