prado trench coat as wool winter coat

Well, here’s something I never expected to sew. Nor did I expect it would turn out so well! On a whim, I sewed our new Prado Trench Coat in a heavy wool fabric with a fully lining, and I’m thrilled with the results! Apparently you were, too, judging from the attention it’s been receiving.

I chose a wool coating (on sale!) in a local store here in Madrid for my coat. It’s very heavy and thick, and I’m fairly certain it’s actually knitted rather than woven. But it’s a stable knit that acts like a woven, so I’m calling it woven despite the apparent construction. In any case, I fell in love with the color, and I was able to find a lining that matched it perfectly so it felt like it was meant to be.

For those of you interested in trying this for yourself, the construction I used for this style was exactly as written for the un-lined coat in the Prado instructions except that instead of cutting the Front Facings I cut two sets of Coat Fronts and treated the second set as the facing. I cut the Side Front and Back and the sleeve pieces from the lining, and then I followed our instructions for the Chaval Coat to construct the coat. It wasn’t not complicated at all. I opted to use a very heavy and stiff interfacing for the front facings and the under collar to give them some real body, and I’m pleased with that choice because they really keep their shape, even with the very heavy fabric.

All topstitching was done with a 3.5 mm stitch. I didn’t sew the buttonholes on the sleeve tabs or epaulettes because the layers were quite thick and I didn’t feeling like risking it. And if you look closely enough you’ll notice that I hadn’t even finished sewing the details when these photos were taken. The belt loops were still at home waiting to be sewn when we returned from this weekend getaway. And pretend like you don’t notice those threads ends I failed to trim, ok?

My inspiration, by the way, was this current trend for trench coat-style winter coats, which is one of those trends that feels timeless enough for me and is VERY much my style. Here are a few examples I love.

I hope you’ll try this for yourself!

You can pick up a copy of the Prado Trench Coat, which is available in digital format only at this time, right here. I hope you’ll tag us with #pradotrench and #lieslandco so we can see what you make. And if you follow this inspiration and make a winter version of the coat, please be sure I see it. It would absolutely make my day!