Trench coat photos

I don't do photo shoots well...just not in my nature, I guess.   But here's the final product!

Looking at the back photo, I think I sewed too much of the pleat closed at the waist.  After the photo,   I went back and released about 2 1/2" inches from the bottom of that stitching.   Don't know when I can get another photo...


The upper pleat doesn't open too much, even with my arms crossed.

My hubby commented, 'That looks like a raincoat!'

To which I replied, 'Good!  'Cause that's what it is!'

eta...I fiinally went back and did the math. Given that the gabardine was on a crazy clearance sale, the entire coat cost less than $40.

C'est Fini!

....er, well, almost.

I still need to pull out all the basting stitches in the pleats and give it a good steaming, but all the sewing is done. ;-)

Hopefully I'll get a review-useable photo or two before the week is over.

Woot!! :-)

13 Buttons

That's all that stands between me and a finished trench coat.

13 buttons.

The button holes are on... and they'll do.

My biggest question...how on earth do I mark the placement of the inside buttons, the ones that button at the top and the waist to secure the underlap of the double breasted front?

I am gonna hafta study on that one....

Next Week for Sure

I did have hopes of finishing the trench coat this week....

Um, for those keeping score, My Sweet Baboo did take his Hunting Frock to the big camp out this weekend, but, in his own words, it's wearable...but not finished...

Anyway.  This is the week after Easter.  I am the church data base admin.  The sum of those two facts translates to...not much time for sewing.

Plus, the drama magnet spring play (Noises Off...hysTERical!) was this weekend.  The Flute Player was not on stage...she was in charge of props...but, being good theater parents, we went to Opening Night on Thursday...and today there was a fundraising dinner before the show.  Since I was there, and I had to hang around to take her home anyway, I volunteered to help with concessions.

Anyway, what that meant was that I stuffed the trench coat into a tote bag and took it with me last night and tonight, to work on while I waited for the show to end so we could go home.

I got the hem in and the sleeve lining sewed down.  And I had a bit of extra time, so I redid one of the  epaulette carriers.  And I was greatly encouraged by the folks who noticed what I was doing and had very nice things to say about the coat.

I've got a wee bit more hand work I could do...I could sew down the epaulette buttons and the pocket flap buttons; I could sew the belt carriers on and I could sew the belt onto the slider buckle.

But the next major step is to topstitch the front edges and sew in the button holes.

Once that's done,sewing on the buttons will be the only additional thing.

I'm beginning to think about the next project...and I'm gonna stick to the SWAP plan, although I'm not going to get ANYTHING done by the deadline except (hopefully) the trench coat.

I really, really need a button up white shirt .  That may be next...

End in sight...

Dunno if I'll finish this week or not...it's possible, though.  We'll see...

Got the hem pinned and pressed but I think I'll put the lining in before I actually hem the coat, that way I can finish off the bottom of the facing when I do the hem instead of just slipstitching it to the hem fold of the coat.
 So I thought I'd pull a couple more pics off the camera and show them...

The collar band fix; I've got the bias hymo tacked into the collar band here; next step is to tack the seams all together.

I could NOT get a nice flat coat photo of the inside; it kept slipping off the ironing board.  But at least you can see the key elements I added... namely, the front and back shield and the sleeve header.








Finally, here's one more bit that I added...there are two buttons for the sleeve tab; one in a sort of normal position and a second one a couple of inches over, to cinch up the sleeve a bit.

However, there really isn't any support for those buttons.  I fudged the first one over a bit and put it on the seam allowance so that it had some support, but that second button is just in the middle of nowhere.

So I cut a wee bit of interfacing and fused to the button position on both sleeves...just to give those buttons something to hang on to.

Progress...progress...

Photo tests...

Downloaded Picasa and I'm slowly figuring it out.

I have to move the photos to an 'export' folder in order to resize them...the resized versions go in the export folder, while the originals remain untouched in their spot.  Makes sense, I suppose, it's just a paradigm shift.

So, I pulled a few photos to check the process:

 Drafting the pattern for the fleece batting sleeve header...

It's a really thin batting, used for baby quilts, I think.  It came in a pre-cut package and went into the sleeve very nicely.

 The back and front shields.  Incidentally, I've got that put in and I love the nice smooth look it gives the shoulder area.  Plus I can sew the shoulder pads straight to it.

I will take some more photos of the interior of the coat before I put the lining in.

Buttonholes by the Kenmore.

I read somewhere that a buttonhole should start exactly one button's width from the finished edge.  I think that might be a bit too far away for the tabs, but not enough to redo them. Just filed away for 'next time'.

Actually, I was supposed to use a smaller size button for the tabs, but I didn't catch that until after the WAWAK order w/all 7/8" buttons had arrived.  I'm not stressing over that.

Moving on...

Before I jump into the progress report, I have a question.

Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a downloadable photo editor? Or, maybe I should rephrase that...does anyone have experience with a cheap photo editor?   I just need something that will crop and resize pictures, nothing fancy schmancy.  Microsoft apparently removed the photo editor from  their home package; I always used the one that was included in our Microsoft 03 package on the old HP, but, well, that has gone the way of all electronics. I really want to post some photos...

So.  Back to the sleeve dilemma.  Debbie had a very good point...something that Cynthia Guffey has stressed in her classes...you can't judge fit of a garment unless you've got both sleeves on.  I knew that...but I didn't really want to put that other sleeve on just to take it off again.

Then I had a facepalm moment...I'd already FINISHED the lining...it had both sleeves set in, cut at exactly the finished sleeve length at the moment.

So I pulled the lining out and put it on.  Hm.  Looked promising, so I took a breath and put the other sleeve on.

Yeah, it's still pretty long.

But when I cross my arms, the sleeves hit precisely where I want them to.

I need that extra length after all.

So...woot woot, I pressed the sleeve seams, pulled out all the gathering/basting stiches and serged the seam allowances.

I'm looking at a fair amount of handwork now; I've got a floating back shield that I attached at the shoulders to floating chest shields and I'm going to hand tack that assembly to the shoulder seams and the armsceye seams, and have a look and see if that gives me just that pinch of extra support or if it really makes the top boardy.

And I also have some fleece sleeve headers to put in as well to support the shoulder cap.

None of that is in the pattern guide, btw.  I'm making it up as I go.

Then I will add the shoulder pads; at some point in there I'll hem the sleeves, too.

Then I'll put the lining in.

I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  There's only one more major hurdle now...the buttonholes.  The Kenmore makes nice ones, but with the cam set up it's always a bit of a guess as to just exactly where it's going to start sewing in the button hole pattern.

I'm still trying to think how to get rid of that guessing...

Tripped up again....

Got one of the sleeves on last night and could not resist putting it on to get a glimpse of what the finished coat would look like and had a bit of a shock.  If you go back and look at the photos of the muslin, you'll see that the finished sleeve length hits right about the bottom of my thumb joint...which would be about right for an overcoat.

I was really surprised, since I almost ALWAYS have to shorten sleeves.

But that looked good.  So I made no alterations.

And last night, when I put on the one-armed coat, I found that the finished sleeve length hit about the tip of my thumbnail.

Whhaaattt???

I did put the muslin on over a sweatshirt, since I wanted to make sure it had ample ease for wearing over a bulky underlayer.  The only explanation I can come up with is that the muslin fabric just didn't slide over the sweatshirt fleece totally and I didn't catch it.

But I went to work today, thinking in my head about how simple it will be to shorten the sleeves, especially since I caught it before I had them both on.

I came home, put the unattached sleeve on the ironing board and suddenly was confronted with a detail I had forgotten.

I'd put a lovely bit of fusible interfacing on the hem.  To fix it properly..., well, I'm not sure I can fix it properly, since I will not have to remove enough length to cut away all the interfacing.  But I definitely want interfacing on that hemline.

So...the only other alternative would be to shorten the sleeve from the top.  Which is probably do-able, I just haven't done it before.

Or, do I just leave the extra length, knowing that it will allow me plenty of ease for bulk in chilly weather?

Oy...

Off and On

My inner perfectionist took over for a bit last night and the collar and band came off the coat.  I trimmed as much off the ends as I could w/o messing with the actual collar, and cut a bias strip of hymo and painstakingly whipped it down to the already graded  collar/band seam allowance, then I put the collar assembly back on the coat.

It went in MUCH smoother, and the collar band stands up nicely.

So all I have to do now is catchstitch the inner band/facing seam to the outer band/coat seam and I'll be back to where I was when I got home from work last night.

Maybe I'll get the sleeves in tonight...

Two steps backwards

Moan about the collar band, part two...

Finished all the handstitching on it and got the sideseams sewn up so I could actually try on the coat.

I wasn't happy with the collar band...it had some bagginess/rippling going on due to being kinda squeezed into the available space...but I thought I could live with it.

However, once I put it on I realized that it really wasn't beefy enough to support the collar...it kinda flops around.

My fabric is a tropical weight wool gab...not at all heavy...but the fusible tricot just wasn't stiff enough to hold it up.

What to do, what to do.

I could ignore it; it's not really something that noticeable.

But I wasn't happy.

I've just about convinced myself I need to pull the whole thing off, take the collar off the band, sew the collar band at exactly the end of the collar (right now, there's about a 1/4" notch that sticks out beyond the collar) and maybe tack in a strip of  hymo to hold it up.

Or maybe just putting the hymo in there would support it enough to get rid of most of the ripples.

Hm. All I'd have to undo then would be the hand stitching.

Might be worth a try.

Still No Pictures :-(

I thought I 'd be able to share some photos of the trench coat progress...I really am making some!!...but, while the new computer is up and running, the Microsoft photo editor that I was using on the old machine apparently has not been part of the upgrade and I can't edit my photos to get them into what I consider 'post worthy' shape.

So I'll give a little report.  As of this morning, I'd gotten everything done I could possibly do before making buttonholes and I pulled out the Kenmore and made some keyhole buttonholes in the pocket flaps, the sleeve tabs and the shoulder tabs.

The pockets were then staring me in the face...I'll admit, I was really intimidated by those pockets, and the directions were, at best, sketchy.  I altered the recommended process a bit; I did NOT slash the dart open until after I was satisfied with the placement of the flap and pocket bags.  All in all, it was probably easier than doing a regular welt pocket with a flap, but, well, I'd be nervous doing that, too.  Cutting into the coat front is just scary, period.

Next up on the nervous-o-meter was the collar.  I already had the collar constructed and on the band, ready to be attached, so I gulped and kept going.  It gave me some aggravation; the band was a bit bigger than the neckline.  I'm not sure why, other than after all the wrasslin' I wondered if I put 5/8" seams on the ends of the band pattern (although I don't know why, unless I thought I had to match the front or something) and then sewed it w/ 3/8" seams, which would've made it about 1/2" too big...and that's about what it seemed to be.  I need to check the pattern tracing.

But, by clipping and stretching the coat neckline and the facing neckline and workin' it, I managed to get it on and, surprisingly, it's not too awful, once it's pressed out.

But, should I decide to make another coat from this pattern, I WILL be checking that.

Current status: pressing out the lapel points and the long facing seams and catchstitching the facing/inner band  coat/outerband seams.

My Sweet Babboo has been sewing a coat, too...something called a 'Hunter's Frock', made from unbleached canvas,  for his frontiersman group.  He's using a pattern from Missouri River Patterns -- and he's handsewing it.  With a needle and linen thread.  He's been toting it around with him for the last 6 weeks or so, working on it every chance he gets, and he's farther along on it than I am on my trench.

How embarrassing.  :-)  Fortunately, I'm in the rapid progress stage; even the lining is completed and ready to go in.  If I can manage to get into the sewing nook at all in the next few days, I should have something that looks like a coat.

'Course, the finish work is all hand sewing...hemming and lotsa buttons.  So he could still beat me.

Yikes.

Moving to 7...

Which means all my photo files are in limbo land at the moment.  So I'm not going to be able to post any photos until we get the old XP tower switched out for the Windows 7 machine that has been sitting in the middle of the room waiting on 1) all the files to be backed up to the external drive and 2) My Sweet Babboo to have a few hours to block out to switch wires and install the software.  I'm hoping he can get to it in what remains of the weekend, but, well, you  know how these things go.

So, now that I think (I HOPE) I've got all my stuff on the external drive, I'm free to do other things...like laundry and sewing on the trench coat.  I've been doing it in an extremely unorthodox sewing order, but I'm trying to get as much done as I can before I pull out the old Kenmore so that I can use its button hole cams to make keyhole buttonholes.  I've got to do them in the pocket flaps, the sleeve tabs and the shoulder tabs.  Then I've got to put the coat together before I can add the rest of the button holes.  I don't want to haul the machine out, put it up, then haul it out again, so once I set it up it's going to stay up until I get all the buttonholes made.

So, as of right now, all the little bits are done to the button holes.  The front and back shields are made; not 100% sure I'll use them but they're done.  The back has the darts in, the pleat sewn up, basted up and hand basted flat.  The rain fly has been lined and attached to the shoulders.  I've thread traced the stitching lines on the darts on the front where the pockets will go.  The front and back facings are sewn together.

I'm starting on the lining.

I probably should take some photos of it while it's in progress, just for documentation purposes.  But I'm not going to be able to post any photos (including the Choir Wardrobe...:-( )  until we're on the other side of the switcheroo.

Whee.  Here we go...

Watching the 'Bee... (Spoiler Warning!)

It was semi-finals on The Great British Sewing Bee today.

Yes, I'm going to talk about what happened, so if you don't want to know yet, you are excused and encouraged to close the window and come back later. ;-)

Fair warning?

Ok.

I fully expected Lynda to be one of the last three standing.  She was off to a great start in the semifinals with her adorable draped-on-the-mannequin dress that, thanks to Patrick's word of advice, she did NOT overdo.  The sleeve challenge was not so good for her, but there was still no indication of what would happen to her on the second day of the no-pattern week sewing.

My heart broke for her.  I've been there...that odd garment that creeps up every once in a while that just seems to be doomed from the start, the one that seems to get in a bigger mess as more effort is put into making it right.

And of course it's something that  just can't be ditched.

Patrick and May said before their final discussion that Lynda was inconsistent.  Well, so am I.  I'll have something that turns out spectacularly, then a row of so-so garments, then the one dud that makes me wonder why I thought I could sew.   Her horror at realizing that she did not have enough fabric to cut her dress took me back to the recent realization that I'd cut the wrong piece out of the face fabric on the trench coat.

I'll even tell you a secret...despite my checking and rechecking, somehow the very first thing I did to that coat was fuse the front interfacing to what I intended to use as the right side.

I guess I'm glad it was the first thing; if I'd done the first side as intended and THEN messed it up there'd be no fixing it.  But the coat is now being constructed matte side out instead of the shinier twilled side out.  Because, well, that's what you do...make the best of it.

And I've watched Lynda make the best of it all the way through, not only with the garments that she's won individual challenges with, but also with the ones that just didn't work.  She hung in there and did great work, so-so work and had a couple of duds.  That's sewing for most of us.

I think that's why I have enjoyed The Great British Sewing Bee so much.  It really is real folks.

I think I could've more or less kept up with the challenges up to this point, although I'm not sure how well I would've handled the 'high street transformations'. I'd just have to hope that the costumer anointing would kick in.   But today's program's no-pattern week would've been over my head.  I don't sew that way...I don't even own a dress form.  I've drafted some skirts, but that's about it.  I don't think I could do a bodice or a sleeve.  My idea of copying a garment is finding a similar pattern and altering it up.  So I don't think I'd've made it through this week.  I'm really impressed with how well those ladies did, especially given the time constraints they had. 

Delighted to see the little bit on Madeleine Vionnet!

Trench Coat...a little bit at a time...

Back to the 20 minute-at-a stretch sewing.  Takes forever, but at least there is some progress.

I started with the little bits...the collar, the belt, the pocket flaps, the shoulder and sleeve bands, etc.  Got them done to the topstitiching.

I'd decided to use a dark charcoal for my topstitiching; it matched the buttons and I thought that would make a nice detail.

The first item to be topstiched after I changed out the thread was the back shield.

Folks, once that thread was on the elephant gray coat it looked blue.

I guess it's just the contrast.  Away from the coat fabric, it looks dark gray.

Laid on it...it looks navy blue.

Weird.

So I've unpicked that topstiching and will redo it.  I considered just using black, but the buttons are a swirly gray, so I nixed the black (now I'm wishing I'd just gotten black buttons). 

I guess I'll just use the matching thread to topstitch.  Won't be quite as striking, but, given the way things are going here, maybe less contrast will be a good thing...

Long day...

DS the Elder, AKA the Artist, had arthroscopic surgery on his knee today, repairing and rebuilding damaged tendons and cartilage and I won the draw to be the official 'family representative'.

Which means I pretty much sat in a chair from 7:30 AM until 5:30 ish PM, when My Sweet Babboo arrived to take the evening shift.

Everything went well and he seems to be recuperating fine; he's hoping to go to the church men's pancake breakfast after he checks out of the medical facility tomorrow.  But it was his right knee, which means he won't be driving for 6 weeks.  That means we're going to be doing a lot of chauffeuring.  Dunno if he can rig up a car pool for his ride into work or not...


I took some needle work but, owing to the aged state of the piece I was working on, I did not have a functional needle with me.  So, I ended up reading a book I found at the bookstore yesterday for just such a situation; George Washington's Secret Six:  The Spy Ring that Saved the American Revolution by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yeager.  It was a quick read...I read all of it before he got to his room...but very enlightening.  I'd never really heard the whole Benedict Arnold story (yup, those six civilian spies were key players), and many of the American Revolution stories that I learned in history class looked a little different coming from a non-textbook perspective.  I'll probably pass it around the family...it's worth a read.

But I did come home and fuse every piece of interfacing I have onto the respective pieces of the coat.  That's a huge piece done; when I can get back into the sewing room, I'll actually be sewing.  Glory! ;-)

Officially in the WIP Column...

Finally finished cutting out the last bits of the trench coat tonight.

I did do some testing and decided that I would

1) cut all the interfacing pieces recommended by Burda from Pro Tricot fusible; it's very light weight but gives the fabric a crisp hand, which should work well for the collar and various tabs.

2) Interface the front, the belt, the sleeve hems, back hems and around the back armsceye with Pro Weft; it's a little thicker than the tricot, but it retains more drape

3) cut a front shield and a back shield from hymo and lining; I'll be putting that together to see if I can get the shoulder area nice and stable.  Haven't tried this before, but I have seen photos on the 'net so I'm going to give it a go.

4) I drafted curvy sleeve headers and cut them from quilt batting.  I saw a lot of references to them in the internet searches I did so I thought I'd give them a try.

I decided to omit the flap on the front; it confused me as it didn't really seem to have a function.  Front flaps I've seen before actually button over the right front, to cover that area at the top of the coat as a storm flap.  But this wasn't drafted to go that far over and I thought it would just kinda flop around, besides creating an opportunity for me to bungle something into Loving Hands at Home.

But I will line the back fly.  I think it will hang better.

My wool gab is really a tropical weight; I think my lining is actually a bit heavier than the shell fabric.  It really needs a bit of weight added here and there...hence the extra interfacing and lining and such.

I cut the coat out, then cut the front interfacing and fused it to the fronts; then I laid the fronts back together and made the tailors tacks for darts and pockets and such.

I really wish I had a clamshell press for things like that....

So I'm ready to start sewing with a fully booked weekend in front of me.  I will readily admit that this may be the only piece I actually finish from the SWAP wardrobe before the deadline, but it is the one I need the most....

Close Call

Decided tonight was The Night to cut out the Trench coat...at least the shell fabric.

Due to the moth damage, I knew I was going to have to fold and cut and fold and cut my way through it; the first piece I cut was the back...tailors tacked all the markings I needed, and then refolded and laid on the front, the lower sleeve and the welt flaps.

For some strange reason, I felt compelled to check the length of the cut back against the laid-out front...I just wanted to make sure I'd added two inches to the pattern length before I cut it.  Something made me think I might've only added an inch and a half.

But, as I messed around with the back something began to nag at me.  Something wasn't right.  I tried to ignore that little mosquito thought on the edge of my conscious and continued chalk marking the addition to the bottom of the front...and just as I finished marking it I realized what the 'something wrong' was.

I'd used the pattern piece for the back lining to cut the back instead of the actual back piece.

I thought I was done for right there.  Kaput.  I wanted to cry, throw up, throw things, scream...instead, I took a deep breath and checked the actual back piece against the remaining length.

There was enough.  By cutting the upper sleeve and a couple of other smaller pieces from the first piece I'd cut, I squeaked by.

There might even be enough left for me to test a couple of different weights of interfacing, although I'm pretty sure I'll use Pro Sheer on the whole front.

Maybe I'll get the rest cut out on Thursday...

Whew.

Am I Overthinking?

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm trying too hard here.

I finally got all the teeny bits of the pattern cut...and I made a pattern for a sleeve header, chest shield and back support as well.

Then I read carefully through the Burda instructions to see how much interfacing they expect me to put on this coat.  It wasn't very easy to find...I  had to hunt a bit to see what I was supposed to interface. 

It's WAAAAAYYYY less than I expected.  No chest shield.  No upper back support.  On the front, there is only a strip down the front edge and around the dart/pocket opening (and I must say, their description of that made NO sense).

I expected a full front interfacing at the very least.

So now I've got a quandry...do I go with the pattern instructions (I looked again at the photos of the coat in the magazine...it does look rather floppy) or do I add more interfacing?  If I add it, how much?

I never liked guess work, but I want the coat to be reasonably sturdy.

Time to go read Trench coat reviews and blog posts, I think...

Almost a muslin...

 I was pretty happy with the muslin until I saw the pictures.  Now I'm not so sure.

I put a sweater on under it, just to make sure that I'd have room for a sweater.

The front looks pretty good...it's the back and side views that are making me frown a bit.

 I didn't include the pleat in the back because I wanted to fit the back w/o cheating any ease from the pleat. I'm seeing some diagonal wrinkles that make me think that 1) the upper back is too wide and 2) the back hip is too snug. (ETA: I think the 'too wide' upper back is a trick of lighting, so I've decided that only the back hip is an issue)

There is a pleat that goes all the way from the back neckline to the hem; I intend to sew it closed at the waistline for about 2" above and below.  There is also a back shield .

And there's a good possibility that a heavier, lined coat would fall just fine; the lightweight muslin may be velcroing a bit to the sweater and jeans underneath.  There will also be a belt and tabs on the lower sleeves.  I thought the sleeves would probably be too long, but they are just about right when I bend my arms, so I think I'm going to leave them at that length.

There's a 2" hem in that that I haven't turned up...I like the length it is, so I'm going to add 2 more inches to so that will be the finished length.

Now to decide...do I need to fix the back, or will it all be ok once the back pleat is there and the coat is lined???  I don't want to overfit...

Meantime, I am in need of something warm and navy blue for choir this month, so I celebrated my (I thought) completed muslin by whipping up a cotton/lycra 3/4 sleeve t from a cobbled up Jalie 2566 pattern (there's no long sleeve option for the t, so I morphed together the cap sleeve and the sleeve for the cardigan...).   It's a pretty casual looking top, but it'll get worn and it felt good to finish SOMETHING! ;-)

First Muslin Pass at the Trench Coat

No, I haven't forgotten that I'm supposed to be making a trench coat...just can't seem to get into the sewing room.

But I did get the muslin cut out and thrown together; the first pass showed that I need to

1) move the shoulders in 3/4"
2) remove excess ease from the sleeve cap
3) lower the bust point of the dart about 1 1/4"

I'll also need to add a couple inches of length, as the bottom edge of the muslin hit right about mid knee, which is about where I want the finished length, so I need to add a hem allowance.

The muslin actually fit a bit loose, but since I will be wearing bulky layers under it I thought that was a good thing.  I think if I can get the shoulders fixed up it will be fine if it's a bit big...I'll be able to put bulky sweaters under it.

I've trimmed out the shoulders and marked the new bust points; I'll fix the darts and put the sleeves in again on  my next iteration.  I'm hoping that the narrowed shoulders will take care of the extra ease in the sleeve cap.

But if that all looks decent I think I'll call it good and cut out the good stuff.  I've decided to go with fusible interfacing, since I really don't want a terribly stiff coat, so it'll probably take me a full week just to get all the interfacing fused on.  I may try to add a floating chest piece, though...I kinda have  a hollow upper chest, so that may be a good thing to do.  

The hardest thing so far has just been sticking to my resolve not to buy any more fabric until the coat is done.  I've had to exercise some real restraint, let me tell you....;-)