Coat Progress

Okay, so I have been making progress on my coat. But the warm weather has not been much of an impetus to get it finished. I have been taking my time, doing lots of hand-sewing (which doesn't show up at all). I hand-stitched hair canvas to the fronts, upper back, and all hemlines. I put hair canvas on both upper and under collar and pad-stitched the under-collar. The fabric is really thick and fuzzy, and no stitches showed through to the outside even if I took bigger stitches than just little pricks. 

Given the thickness of the fabric, I didn't want welt pockets, I didn't think I would do a good job with them, so I opted for patch pockets. And they are interfaced with hair canvas, then lined, and then hand-stitched twice to the coat so they will be nice and secure without any stitches showing.

I also added a back stay using linen fabric from the stash. This will help keep the back shoulders from stretching out and will also hide any outline of shoulder pads.

At this point, before the sleeves were set in, I made the buttonholes. I made six preliminary buttonholes by machine and the plan is to overcast these with buttonhole twist so that I will actually have handworked buttonholes. I have been practising those, and so far they are not looking good to me. I may resort to going over the buttonholes once again by machine and calling it a day. 

Here you can see the interfacing strips in the hem area. With hair canvas, you cut strips on the bias that are 1 1/2" wider than your hem allowance, then position the interfacing so that it extends 1/2" below the hemline. It is hand basted along the hemline and catch-stitched along the top to the coat itself. Then when the hem is turned up, it is catch-stitched to the interfacing and it never ever shows on the outside. The bias interfacing also gives a nice soft edge to the hemline. I also did this on the sleeve hems.

Here is a photo of the inside of the front of the coat, it isn't the greatest photo. But you can see the hair canvas which covers the entire centre front pieces. I also interfaced the side pieces of the front to about 9" below the armholes. And you can see where the sleeves have been put in, I used tie interfacing (since it is on the bias) to ease the sleeve caps and then that interfacing is turned out into the sleeve caps to provide a sleeve header. After that, the shoulder pads are stitched in place. 

This is the back where you can see the linen back stay which covers the back from neck to under the armholes. Underneath the stay, there is more hair canvas. I tell you there has been so much hand-stitching on this coat. But you know, where I live, winter is a really big deal. It is wicked and lasts for four months of the year. We can wear winter coats for five months so it is worth doing all this work because this coat will get worn a lot.

Full photo of the back with all the inner stuff showing. Pretty unsightly, but it will be all covered up with beautiful shiny Kasha lining (flannel-backed satin) in royal blue and none of this will ever be seen again.

I was planning on getting buttons to match the coat in colour, but I am thinking now that I should perhaps go with jet black buttons. The coat looks really plain, and perhaps a contrast button would be a good idea. I am thinking that this coat needs a gorgeous sunny yellow scarf tucked inside the neckline and I am on the lookout for one in the stores. Funny when you want a specific colour in something, it is nowhere to be found. I may have to make one.

More later, I hope to have this finished by Christmas day.

Merry Christmas to all.

Jacket #2

They say women can change their minds as much as they like, so that will be my excuse. Having posted pics of the brocade and McCalls jackets in the previous post, now I am going with a different project altogether.

I will blame it on the weather. It is cold here, and my overcoat selection is poor. One down-filled coat for walking the dog and running errands, it really does keep me warm as toast. But it doesn't look so good with anything other than casual pants. And I have one knee-length black coat for any other occasion. I also have one very long grey tweed coat, but I feel overwhelmed in it, given its length and bulk. At 5'1" tall, I can't carry off that much fabric.

So I decided that the brocade jean jacket could wait a few weeks and I would make a winter coat. The pattern is Butterick 5399, the shorter version and the fabric is a squishy wool coating that I had in the stash. I even have the satin-backed lining to go with it. Plus raglan shoulder pads and hair canvas for interfacing and thread. The only thing missing is the buttons, which I always prefer to buy at the end once the garment is finished.



I prefer using hair canvas on wool coating. I have had some bad experiences with fusing interfacing to coating; it didn't stick well and it didn't add much stability to the fabric either. I have always figured that the time spent fusing interfacing has to be equal to the time spent cross-stitching hair canvas to the wool, and I prefer the results. I have made a few coats with hair canvas and have not been disappointed with it. More hand-sewing for tv time, I figure.


Butterick 5399 is a nice wardrobe pattern, although I will probably only make the jacket from it.

Here is the back view, I particularly like the raglan sleeves, so much more comfortable in a jacket/coat than set-in sleeves.


For now, I am hand-sewing the gimp to the Chanel jacket and am disciplining myself to finish that before starting the coat. Too many projects go unfinished around here, and that is kind of wasteful on my part. A new year, a new resolution.