Secret Challenge and a swing coat - HSM/HSF - L

I bought some lovely fabric years ago.  It's a loose weave wool/silk blend.  It's a light, soft, medium drape fabric.  In fact, I got two different colors of this lovely fabric.  I knew I wanted to make a swing coat and maybe a capelet (or, ya know, something fun).  Every fall I tell myself  'I need to make that swing coat' but something else gets in the way.  Since I'm trying to burn down stash fabric, I simply HAD to get this done.  I live on the California coast near San Francisco so a lightweight coat is useful most of the year, and I love 30's and 40's clothes.  I'm using the Butterick '48 vintage pattern that was recently re-issued.  That makes this coat too modern for the HSM/HSF group, however the challenge is to add something secret to an item.  I seriously hope I'm not stretching the rules too much by adding an small embroidered pocket on the inside of the coat as my 'secret'.  The plan for the embroidery is to copy a tiny painting my grandmother made.  She would have worn a coat like this, and was as fashionable as she could be on her rather limited budget.  She loved birds and took up painting them in the latter half of her life.  The challenge is entirely around my embroidery skills.

See the secret pocket??

The coat

As always, I'm did an FBA.  Bust shaping in the pattern is accomplished with a shoulder dart at the edge of the shawl collar.  I was loathe to increase the size of this dart since it looked like it would add more volume at the center front than at the actual bust.  So once again, I added a bust dart.  Basically, I slashed and spread as if I was increasing an existing dart to create this dart.  I'm trying something new.  I'm making the changes on a tracing of the pattern from the waist up.  I marked the waist on the tracing.  I used this modified pattern piece as an overlay for the front, the interface and the lining.  It saved me having to make the modifications 3 times.  The added width from the FBA was perfect to allow me to add a button to a coat that wasn't supposed to have one.


 The fabric ultimately had too loose a weave and too much stretch for this coat.  Sadly, I'm not very happy with it.  Also, my poor choice of interfacing remains crunchy even after a few wearings and professional pressing.  Hanging  it on the dress form doesn't help but I've had the flu for over a week and couldn't bring myself to take a picture in it.

The happy, happy secret:

It only took three tries to get the bluebird embroidered.  It's been a VERY long time since that Girl Scout badge so I can't even remember the names of the stitches I used.