Retazo Coat Fitting Basics: The Most Important Measurement

With cozy, layering-friendly ease, your Retazo Coat or Vest can warm you through changing seasons. And with princess seams, the fit can be really simple to fine-tune!

When you’re fitting a coat, it’s important to use BOTH of the charts in the pattern. The Body Measurements give you a place to help you find a size. First, take your measurements! Here’s some help if you need it.

Finding your Retazo Coat Size

Find a size that aligns with your own body measurements, or a blend of sizes if that’s a better option. Use the Bust size as the priority for this pattern, grading out or in through the waist, hip, or bicep if needed. Then use the Finished Measurements to help you confirm that the ease and length suit your preferences.

Take note that the amount of ease on a coat is significantly more than the amount of ease on a dress or pants! So if you look at the finished bust and do a double take, it can be really helpful to compare the finished measurements of a similar garment that you already wear and like. If you have a coat that fits perfectly over allllll of your sweaters, measure it up to see what its finished measurements are, and let those numbers support your sizing decision. If you always knit really bulky sweaters, for example, you may choose to size up for extra room, or if you’re not really into layers and want a bit less ease, size down.

Make a Retazo Coat Muslin

Making a muslin is incredibly informative and a really valuable tool for fitting!

It lowers the stakes significantly while you refine the fit (especially if you quilt-as-you-go!), but it’s important to remember that for a coat muslin you have to imagine the fabric being bulkier than the muslin is. So if it’s snug in muslin, it will be even more sung in your final quilted fabric, because the fabric is that much thicker and has a heavier hand.

If you’d like to do an FBA, we have a really helpful post on FBAs for princess seams right here. Start the video at 1:20 to skip to the pattern changes. Here’s a finished FBA on the Retazo pattern pieces, so you can see how it might look:

The princess seam’s curves are really subtle – there’s a lot of ease in a coat that makes the bust fitting a lot more simple than, say, a fitted dress. It’s not likely that you’ll need to do an SBA, and you can keep it really simple by adjusting the bust curve on the princess seam a little. If you do really want to give it a try following the usual method, here’s some help with SBAs on princess seam bodices.

Here’s a finished SBA on the Retazo pattern pieces (done the simpler way by adjusting the bust curve on the princess seam a little), so you can see how it might look:

Blending Sizes with the Retazo Coat

Blending sizes on princess seamed garments is actually easier than without! You have more places to fine-tune! To read a bit more into blending sizes (AKA Grading between sizes), start here.

The handy thing about the princess seams is that you can grade out just on the back if you’d like a bit more curve in the backside, or only on the hip all the way around if you’d like a little more flare in that hem, or… whatever customization suits you!

Here are two examples of blending sizes, so you can see how this pattern change might look

Size 14 blended to 18 at hip

Size 14 blended to 18 at hip

Dive into your Retazo Coat

You have all the tools you need to choose a size and get a great fit on your Retazo coat! If you want to learn more about fitting your handmade wardrobe you might enjoy Fit & Sew Bodices and Fit & Sew Pants!