Nancy K: Not so sure about this coat.

I have a second muslin finished and I stopped. For several reasons. One of them being I am not sure that I want such a low opening on this coat. The collar is huge, so I was thinking of folding out some of the depth to in both the collar and the separate lapel area so that I can raise the opening. The coat is actually lower and wider than the drawing appears. Though this could be that the coating will take up more room.
The second question: The coat doesn't call for shoulder pads, which is kind of understandable with the monster collar. However, I have a low shoulder and I either need to take up that shoulder and or do a combination of adding a small shoulder pad and taking up the shoulder seam. SB says if you lower your shoulder you also need to reduce the outside edge of the collar. Without a shoulder pad the fold out in the collar would be 1", double the amount I lowered the shoulder, which without a pad is 1/2" front and back. Her book is the only place that I have seen this mentioned. The left shoulder could benefit from a small pad too. This totally eliminates any diagonal wrinkling pointing to my shoulders. Advice please?

Tany's coat: some progress made

During this weekend I was able to make some progress on my coat.

At this point I’ve cut all the velvet pieces, underlined them with the thin knit fusible that Paco sent me, thread traced them all, cut the canvas interfacing and the lining. I’ve initiated the construction by making the in-seam pockets on the side seams (I’ve decided to maintain the original pocket placement). The pockets are located in the seam that joins the upper side-front and upper side-back (both these panels are to be stitched to the bottom side panel next). You can see the upper lateral here:


The pocket bag is made of a lining part and a velvet part. The lining is stitched to the front panel and the velvet to the back (don’t forget to reinforce the pocket opening) and the finished pocket bag should be set towards the front. You can also observe that I’ve topstitched the front opening, to avoid the lining peeking out accidentally.

Here’s the wrong side:

And another detail of the seam treatment: you can see that I zigzagged the SAs but if you look carefully, you’ll see that the SAs are also catch stitched, so they remain flat and open:

Next I will join these panels to the bottom piece of the side panel. There’s yet a lot to do before attaching and padstitching the canvas to the coat: the bound buttonholes and the waist embellishment (satin tape); I must join all the vertical seams of the coat so I can apply the satin tape to the waist as a continuous tape. The shoulder seams will be left unstitched until the front interfacing and back shield are set in place.

Happy Sewing everybody!