KayY - I'm done!

I'm checking back in after a long hiatus (my last post was September 7). Since then a lot of stuff got in the way of sewing my coat, and I was making such great progress. I knew it was too good to last! However, I overcame my sewing-related hurdle and had some time, so completed the coat yesterday as I had the day off. There are more pictures on my Flickr page.

When I last posted I was in the midst of the assembly of the shell. That went well until I hit a snag. I had altered the pattern to make it loose-enough for a winter coat and among other things, I extended the shoulder 1cm. This was a mistake. When I added the sleeves, they weighed down the shoulders terribly and made the coat just sag unattractively. I had to do some ripping out, cut the shoulders back and re-set the sleeves. Luckily this was a relatively simple task, just took some mental preparation.

This is what I did inside the shoulder. I decided against putting any padding in the shoulder but I did cut another layer of stiffening following the pattern piece for the shoulder inset (which is shoulder pad shaped). I used 2 layers of the stiffest hair canvas I had, and fused them together using a pressing ham to get the shaping. This pic shows the resulting layer stitched in place by hand. You can also see my home-made sleeve head which I cut out of fleece, using the sleeve cap pattern. This emulates the nice curved sleeve heads that some of you bought - but honestly, they are the easiest thing to make, and if you use your own sleeve pattern they are precisely the right shape and size for the garment.

Here is the sleeve hem, which I did while I had the sleeves off the coat. I used a bias strip of the hair canvas, which is placed over the fold line and extends above the hem edge, as you can see. This supports the hem. In this pic you can also see the black underlining (mystery fabric) which I hope will block the wind.




And the hem. It is faced, using lining fabric. I cut a 3" (or so) wide strip, following the hem edge of my coat pattern pieces. The strips are seamed, serged, and then sewn along the lower edge. This did 2 things for me. It allowed me to maximize my coat's length and it avoided bulk. It also made for a nice finish at the facing edge, as you can see.

Here's my lining. It's an odd black-on-black printed Kasha, purchased in Montreal at a warehouse-y place near the highway, where they practically needed a forklift truck to get at some of the fabric way up high.
And a closer shot, showing my pockets and the red strip (lining fabric, cut on grain) which is sewn between the facing and lining. This adds a subtle pizzazz but, more importantly, stabilized the bias facing/lining seam. It won't stretch now.

My coat pattern had NO POCKETS! I briefly considered making inseam pockets but the side seams are very far back and they would have been awkward. So, I just made big patch pockets in the lining. I added a little patch to the right hand one, for bus tickets.

Last but not least, here is the coat with 2 different fur scarves. Bring on the sub-zero temperatures! I'm ready.