Sara's Landgate Jacket

My Landgate jacket is done!!! I've wanted a water resistant jacket for a while now. So, when Amber and Jamie asked me to sew-a-long with them and had the Landgate pattern laying on the table, I knew it was meant to be! This is actually my 4th coat in a 12 month period. After making so many, I've told a lot of people coats aren't harder sewing, just MORE of the same sewing. That being said, there were still a few moments when I got frustrated and made up cuss words--"fudge and popscicles!"--because they make me feel better. Hello, attaching the hood and drawstring casing when I stabbed my fingers about 213,359,047 times with the pins holding them on.

Size Made: XS
Fabric: Olive Waxed Canvas (2-1/2 yards), Black Kona Cotton for pocket lining (1/3 yard)
Modifications: Added gusset to side seam, included both pocket styles, shortened hem length

If you remember, I had a minor freak out moment during week 2 when I tried on a muslin one of our sew-a-longers brought in. I had already cut out a size XS. This is a unisex pattern and after converting cm to inches, it looked like the XS had a chest/bust measurement of 46". My bust is 38", so that should have been 8" of positive ease. The issue was that the chest/bust measurement was the ONLY measurement indicated on the pattern. I didn't think much of it, if it's boxy, then the hips should also be just about 46", and mine are 41". Snugger than the chest, but still fine at 5" of positive ease. If you're planning to make this jacket, I would highly recommend measuring both your front and back pieces at the hips, add them together and subtract any seam allowances that get used up when it's sewn up, and you'll have the actual garment measurements. Or, you can be crazy like me and ignore that and draft your own triangle gusset thingy from scratch to add room to the hips. There were several fake cussing moments (shiitake mushrooms!) while trying to figure it all out, but I'm honestly glad that I added the gusset to this jacket. It changes the shape just enough to make it not quite as boxy as it would be otherwise.

So, major modifications I made: added a gusset to each side that measured 6" at the bottom, chopped the hem off about 1.5" shorter than drafted which meant I had to make my front patch pockets 1.5" shorter so they didn't get awkwardly cut off, and same for the side seam pockets. And all of this shortening means that those 6" at the bottom gussets aren't 6" anymore. I'm guessing they are closer to 4.5" or 5".

I wanted to use all shiny brass bits on my coat. My zipper is shiny brass and was actually like 16" long when I bought it (easy to shorten). I had some large brass grommets and brass snaps at my house that made it all come together nicely.

I discovered that I can wear this over my hand knit sweaters, but it's really grabby and wants to pull the sweater off with it when I take it off. Not that big of a deal, but occasionally annoying. Adding a lining to the waxed canvas would help this.

As far as care and keeping of waxed canvas, most sources I've seen recommend just wiping any dirt off with a damp cloth. Never throw it in the wash or dry clean it. Over time the wax coating will wear off. I've been told that you can just use a product like Otter Wax to refresh the canvas's coating. I've got a few scraps of canvas left that I'm planning on trying that with before I do anything to this coat. The one thing I'm considering is rubbing some wax into all of the stitching to give it a little bit more water resistance. The stitching is the one weak point where water will want to go through on a garment like this. But, I'm not sure how it'll work. It should probably be heated to make it soak into the thread, but I don't want to mess up the canvas around it. I see a lot of testing in my future!

I can't wait to break it in hiking!