Lined Winter Jacket

At the end of this you will own a wool jacket with a smooth lining inside, shaped shoulders, real front facings and pockets you can put cold hands into — a coat you reach for in November because it fits you, not because it was on sale. This is the boss level of the library: it takes several weekends, it uses a printed pattern, and it asks you to trust a garment that looks like a pile of unrelated shapes for most of its life. That gap between "pile of shapes" and "coat" is exactly the thing you are here to learn.

What you need

Costs below are honest approximations for a straight-size jacket in the 2 to 3 yard range. Wool coating is the expensive part, and it is the only part worth stretching for.

Cut list

A jacket's shapes come from your pattern, not from a rectangle chart — so this is a piece list, not a dimensions list. Before you cut anything, walk through how to read a sewing pattern and check which seam allowance your envelope uses.

• Seam allowance: most commercial jacket patterns use 5/8-inch on every seam and 1.5-inch at the sleeve and body hems. Write the number on a scrap of tape and stick it to your machine.
• Preshrink first. Steam the wool thoroughly with the iron hovering just above the surface, and wash and dry the lining. A coat that shrinks after the first rain is a very sad object.

Cut from the wool shell:

• Front x2, Back x1 on the fold (or x2 with a centre back seam)
• Front facing x2, Back neck facing x1
• Upper collar x1, Under collar x1
• Sleeve x2, and the two-piece sleeve's under-sleeve x2 if your pattern has one
• Pocket bags x4, or welt pieces per your pattern

Cut from the lining:

• Front lining x2, Back lining x1 — cut the back with the 1-inch centre pleat if the pattern marks one
• Sleeve lining x2

Cut from the fusible interfacing:

• Both front facings, the back neck facing, the under collar, and 2-inch strips for the body and sleeve hems

Steps

Prepare and press

1. Fuse the interfacing to the wrong side of the facings, under collar and hem strips. Use a press cloth, firm pressure, and hold — do not glide. Interfacing is what stops the front edge of a coat from looking like a dish towel.
2. Staystitch the necklines a scant 1/2-inch from the raw edge. Curved edges stretch as you handle them, and a stretched neckline never sits flat again.

Build the shell

3. Sew the shoulder seams, then the side seams, right sides together at 5/8-inch. Press each seam open over the point of the ironing board as you go. Pressing seams open is what makes a jacket read as tailored rather than homemade-in-a-hurry.
4. Make and attach the pockets before the garment gets bulky. Patch pockets are the honest beginner choice; welt pockets are a whole skill of their own and there is no shame in leaving them for jacket number two.
5. Assemble the collar: sew upper to under collar, trim the seam allowance down to about 1/4-inch, clip the curves, turn, and press with the seam rolled a hair toward the underside so it does not peek from the front.
6. Sandwich the collar between the jacket neckline and the facing unit, stitch, grade the layers, and press. This is the fiddliest ten minutes in the project.
7. Set the sleeves. Run two rows of long basting stitches in the sleeve cap, pull gently to ease the extra length, pin the sleeve into the armhole matching notches, and stitch from inside the sleeve. Ease means distributing extra fabric without folds — go slowly and re-pin as often as you need.

Line it and finish

8. Sew the lining exactly like the shell — shoulders, sides, sleeves — but leave a 6-inch gap in one lining side seam. That gap is how you will turn the whole coat right side out.
9. Attach the lining to the facings all the way around the front edges and neckline, right sides together. Then pull the entire jacket through the gap. This is the moment it becomes a coat.
10. Hem the shell by hand with a catchstitch so no stitching shows on the outside — the same logic as hemming trousers. If hand stitches are new territory, the basic hand sewing stitches guide covers the ones you need here.
11. Close the lining gap by hand with a slipstitch, then let the lining hang about 1-inch above the shell hem so it never drags below the edge.
12. Finish the front. Buttons and buttonholes, a snap placket, or a separating zip — if you go with a zip, sewing a zipper walks the same technique at a smaller scale.
13. Press the finished coat properly, with steam and a press cloth, and hang it overnight before you wear it.

When it goes wonky

What you just learned

• Interfacing and structure — how a flat fabric is taught to hold a shape, which is the core of every tailored garment you will ever make.
• Easing a curve into a curve — setting a sleeve is the same skill as a princess seam, a curved yoke, or a set-in bag gusset.
• Bagging a lining — turning a garment through a gap so every raw edge disappears; it works identically on bags, vests and jackets.
• Pressing as construction — you now know that the iron shapes the garment as much as the machine does.

Nothing in the library outranks this one. Wear it for a season, notice the two things you would change, then make a second version — or go back to the Tailor level and pick the skill this jacket showed you that you want to sharpen.