Watson Jacket – Papercut Patterns

I decided to make this Watson jacket after seeing the new Mary Poppins Returns moving and falling head over heals for her cape coats! The red herringbone wool is from FabWorks, called ‘winter berries’ and is the most beautiful quality, just the right weight and drape. The lining is called ‘gunmetal’ and is from Raystitch, again really nice quality, a little weightier that the usual poly/acetate linings and very silky. I used 2.4m of the wool (167cm wide) and 1.5m of the lining fabric (150cm wide).
I cut a size Small even though my body measurements suggested a Medium on their size chart but I went by the finished garment measurements chart instead. The only alteration I made to the pattern was to shorten the sleeves by 6 cm. I also added a strip of tailors interfacing to the bottom 8 inches of the sleeves as I always think this holds the finished hem better when you press it and gives you something other than the wool to slip stitch your lining too. The layplan calls for both collar pieces to be interfaced but I only did the bottom one, I think it often looks far to stiff if you do both, even with tailors interfacing. I also cut my top collar piece so that the herringbone ‘v’s went in line with the front of the jacket, rather than cutting it out in the position they suggest on the lay plan.
The instructions were ok. But only ok. To be perfectly honest I found them a little lazily written in places and inconsistent. Sometimes ‘right sides together’ or ‘wrong sides together’ would be mentioned and sometimes not. It might seem obvious in most cases but why not be consistent? It helps less experienced sewers. There were also several stages where instructions for pressing and notching/clipping were missing which again I found lazy and inconsistent. I also think there could have been a few more notches on the pattern to help and in a couple of places there seemed to be no corresponding notch on one pattern piece to match up with another pattern piece.
I’m really pleased with the finished jacket and I’d definitely recommend it but probably not if this is the first tailored jacket you’ve ever made as the instructions just aren’t good enough. The packaging might be lovely and unusual and I like that it’s all printed on recycled paper but if these design features come at the cost of well written, consistent instructions then the whole thing loses it’s shine a bit.