The Isla Trench contains all the classic tailoring and construction of a RTW trench and wouldn’t be out of place amongst its Burberry peers. This will be a staple in any wardrobe and will be worn year after year, so you will justify the amount of time needed for the construction.
I would say the only down side of this pattern is that the pieces are overlaid, so I opted to get a copy shop print out and still had to labour over tracing out the pieces, that’s my personal pain point, so if you can stretch to printing out two of each sheet, it might take the pain out of some of this part of the process.
The instructions are thorough and there are plenty of them. I re-read them hundreds of times! This project is advanced and not for the faint hearted. If you have lined a jacket or coat before though, I think you could take this project on and it takes you from confident beginner to advanced sewist.
It was my first time making welt pockets, so I found this a bit tricky, mine are far from perfect, despite making a toile, if I were to make this again, I would toile the welt pockets in a scrap of my shell fabric to match the weight of the pockets for the finished garments.
Aside from that it comes together well, not quickly in my case, I stitched away at this for weeks and weeks, but could easily come together in two weekends if you put your mind to it.
I love all the top stitching detail and decided not to use a top stitching thread, as my machine kept eating it up and secondly to save time switching between threads.
A great project to get your teeth into, one you’ll wear 80% of the year int he UK let’s be honest. One I would make again, maybe in 10 years or so and maybe in a wool for colder climates.
More photos on my make and construction over on my blog: https://makersgottomake.co.uk/2019/06/28/isla-trench-coat/