{burda coat: pattern prep}

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Time to begin the Great Coat of 2011!

Sad news to start: turns out (since I didn't have the pattern on hand) I bought half a meter too little of the fabric!
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
So I will have to go back to Dressew, hoping and praying they didn't run out of it that fast and just make things work when I cut out the pieces.

What I did get started on was the arduous task of tracing, altering, and cutting out my pattern.  This was my first time tracing out a pattern from the BurdaStyle magazine rather than an online print-out.  I bought this copy of the magazine and was thrilled to see how many patterns I wanted to use out of it, but haven't gotten around to tracing any of them until now.

I will admit it was tricky.  Perhaps trickier because it was new to me, but I suspect I still like this better than the print at home ones.  Also, the print at home ones often seem to be missing bits of instructions and some guide symbols on the patterns. That doesn't make things any easier.

Fortuitously, I just came across a tutorial at thecupcakegoddess on how to adjust patterns for big shoulders.  Hey, I've got those, and one of my biggest complaints about coats on me is that they restrain my arm range of motion.  I did not make a muslin, but I did follow her guide for making adjustments on my pattern...

 on the sleeve bottom,

 sleeve top,

and back armhole.

And, as usual, down two sizes from the rest at the waist.  I didn't try to alter any of the darts, so hopefully that will be enough.

Next, I'll be pulling my usual lazy trick of making the lining first as my test muslin.  Until then...

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