Wardrobe Staples: Easy Raw Hem, Unlined Camel Coat

The camel coat to me is a piece of ultimate timelessness. I've been debating between a wool coat and a classic trench, the main predicament being: the season for wintery outerwear is is wrapping up, and the perfect trench weather only lasts for a brief time. I wanted something that can work as a layering piece but is also lightweight enough to wear long into the spring, and even on chilly summer nights. Enter the unlined wool camel coat, perfect all year around, fuss of making minimized.

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.

TOOLS:

Camel lightweight wool, depending on desired coat length, I used 2.3 m  |  Matching thread & sewing machine  |  Scissors  |  Pencil or fabric marker  |  Pins  +  Optional: some fray-stop glue

I. Trace the back piece of the coat, 2 front panels, the sleeves, and a long rectangular piece that will make up the notched lapel. You can use a blazer for guidance - add a couple cm all around to achieve a looser fit. (Note that I had the exact right amount of fabric and made my collar piece out of 2 bits I sewed together.)

.. Cut the pieces out and they should look something like this:

II. Start constructing from the shoulders. Pin the shoulders together, right sides of fabric facing. The front panel pieces should go over the edge of the back piece shoulder line by about 1 cm, like this:

Sew a straight stitch through, about 1 cm from the edge of the back piece. Use an iron to press a fold on the longer edge and to fold it over the shorter one:

Pin down, and on the right side, sew a nice straight stitch about 0.7 cm from the first seam to create a a semi-flat felled seam that looks like on both sides.

III. Continue with the sleeves. Pin them to the armholes, right sides facing.

Once done, cut little notches along the way to remove pull from the curved seam. Press the seam flat with your iron.

IV. Now for the sleeve under seams and the sides. Still right sides facing, pin the sleeves together and continue all the way down the sides. On the sides, do the same thing as with the shoulders; attach the seams with the front piece having 1 cm more seam allowance.

As with the shoulder seams, create the same kind of seam on the sides - first iron a fold, pin, and sew on the right side.

For the seams of the sleeves, I only finished the seam like this about 10 cm from the end (for a finished look when I roll the sleeves), and the rest of the way simply ironed it flat on the inside. Life is short, if it doesn't show or fray, who cares.

V. As the last step, pin the rectangular collar piece to the coat like this. To make sure the seam on my collar piece was on the non-visible side, I had to pin the right side of the collar piece to the wrong side of the coat. Same thing applies if your fabric has a wrong and right side - make sure the right side of the collar piece is against the inside of your coat.

From there it's just a matter of pressing the collar flat (I used some iron-on hemming tape to secure the folds in place). I also trimmed down the size of the collar quite a bit, trying on and cutting narrow slits off until I had the size I wanted.

The last optional step (depending on the quality of your fabric) is to treat the raw edges with a fray-stop liquid. This will keep them clean over time.

Selfmade coat, selfmade bag, Topshop shirt, Madewell jeans, Larsson Jennings watch, Dolce Vita boots

xo,

Julia