Tany's coat: finished!

Here’s the finished coat:

I was planning to take better pictures of me with the coat on, outside and with natural light but my family came to visit and all my plans have changed, so these are what I have for now (I’ll post better pictures as soon as I can). Photographing black velvet is very hard and the flashlight really changes the coat’s appearance; it looks like it has more reflexes; the coat is much more beautiful in real life and I feel really great wearing it!

You can see more pictures and read a full review at my blog (click here)

Tany's coat: setting in the lining sleeves

Well, these are the last images before showing you the finished coat; at this point I still have to finish hand sewing the lining to the facings, sew the french tacks to the hem and stitch the buttons in place (besides cleaning the lint out of the coat!)

The lining was applied following the instructions in the Reader’s Digest “Complete Guide to Sewing” book so you may need to refer to that book to see additional details and diagrams of the process (I own both the vintage 70’s edition and the newer one and both books explain the process in great detail).

The tailored lining is constructed separately (the sleeves are constructed but not set at this point), leaving the shoulder seams open, and it’s entirely hand sewn to the coat; besides slipstitching the lining to the facings, the lining’s side seam allowances are also tacked to the coat’s side SAs using short running stitches (these stitches should not be visible on the right side of the coat; the needle catches only the SAs). I started by performing this operation on the side seams and then I hand basted the lining to the facings, neckline and shoulders. The lining should also be attached around the armholes using short running stitches on the SAs side. The body of the lining becomes attached and well secured this way. Only at this point we are ready to set in the lining sleeves and that’s what I’ll be illustrating next.

As we did for the coat side seams, the lining and coat back sleeve seams should also be tacked together. To do this the sleeve and the lining sleeve should be wrong side out with the back seams facing each other. The two SAs are basted together by short running stitches, ending 10cm from the sleeve cuff edge:

To turn the lining sleeve over the coat sleeve, I must insert my arm through the lining sleeve and hold to the coat’s cuff, passing the lining through the arm over to the coat’s sleeve:


Before stitching the lining sleeve to the lining, here’s how the armhole looks with the shoulder pad and the “moustache” sleeve already set in place:

Here’s a better view of the shoulder pad before attaching the lining to the facing and shoulder:

The sleeve SAs are turned in (the sleeve cap should be eased and the bottom armhole stay stitched and clipped) and slipstitched using a double strand of thread on the needle for reinforcement:

Now I have to slip stitch the lining to the facings, shoulder and neckline and sleeve hem, remove the bastings, hem the lining, make the French tacks and sew the buttons in place. I will try to get the coat finished by tomorrow. See you soon!

Tany's coat: Now I really understand…

…why a custom tailored coat is so expensive! The amount of hand work is tremendous, there are many hours spent perfecting little details. And the difference shows, I assure you: the coat is heavier, the collar/lapels are crisper and better shaped and the coat hangs much better when it’s on. As a side note, working with velvet on such a project is really hard; besides the mess (my living room’s floor is always covered with little black spots of velvet fur, no matter how many times I vacuum), the velvet acts like a magnet to all the lint/dust around and it’s looking “dirty” until I brush it in the end, so don’t pay any attention to that!

The collar is nearly finished but I still have to finish hand tacking the facings inside (so there is a little rippling on the inside of the collar but it will disappear once I finish the facings). The following pictures show the collar right after the under collar was set (following Paco’s method, the facings/upper collar are stitched first and then the under collar is first machine stitched to the outer edge of the upper collar, turned to the right side under the upper collar and finally stitched by hand to the neckline and lapel’s corner (turning in the SAs ). I still have to press and prick stitch under the edges, but you can preview the clean crisp look of the collar and lapels already:


I also managed to make some progress on the hems; they were cushioned with bias cut interfacing strips, a little wider than the hem allowances, and set by hand (following the traditional method). I also stitched a wide cotton tape to the hem edge; this tape will cover the interfacing that is peaking out of the hem. I like to do things this way because the lining will be free hanging on this coat. The hem is not finished, just hand basted so I can evaluate it’s final aspect:


Another detail that I want to share is the way that the coat’s waist is slightly eased to the satin tapes on the back; I did this to better shape the waist on the back and to avoid adding a center back seam to the coat, as I had determined with the muslin:

This was the result of a weekend in which all the free time was used to work on this coat; there is still much work ahead: tacking the facings (and finishing the buttonholes on the facing side), constructing and setting in the sleeves, applying the sleeve heads and shoulder pads (I have Els' excellent tutorial to assist me on that task) and constructing the lining and applying it to the coat (I’ll be using the traditional method, so the lining will be entirely hand sewn in place).

Tany's coat: satin tape and more on the buttonholes

As promised, I’ll show you some details before starting the padstitching on the coat. For attaching the interfacing, tapes and reinforcements I’ll be referring to Paco’s tutorial.

Let’s start by the satin tapes around the waist, which must be set before the interfacing and after stitching all the vertical seams of the coat’s body; the satin tape is hand stitched because I didn’t want to take the risk of damaging the velvet by using the sewing machine:

Another detail is the buttonhole treatment after basting the canvas in place. The right front interfacing must have the buttonholes cut out as rectangles, slightly bigger than the buttonhole size:

The buttonhole’s SAs are slipped through these rectangles as seen in the next picture:

The canvas is then hand basted to the front; the buttonhole Sas are trimmed, graded and tacked down to the interfacing:


Now I’m ready to start padstitching!

Tany's coat: bound buttonholes

This is a very time consuming project and I am extra limited because the fabric is black and I avoid sewing black fabrics at night, hence my progress has been so slow. Up to this point I’ve made the buttonholes (the welts were hand sewn in place), sewn all the body’s vertical seams (I left the shoulder seams open), tacked down the SAs and I started hand sewing the satin tape to the waist of the coat. The main reasons for all this hand sewing are: the presser foot could flat down the pile when sewing on the right side of the fabric and avoiding the slide effect when joining two layers when at least one has pile (sewing straight is very difficult because of this sliding effect). I could minor this problem by extra hand basting but I’d risk damaging the satin tape. Hand sewing provides more control and the result is much neater; the only disadvantage is that it takes extra time to get done.

Today I will show you the buttonholes; I used the “window” method, explained in a previous article at my blog (read it here). The only difference is that I’ve hand sewn the welts on instead of topstitching them.

The window method always uses a patch to make the “window”, a small rectangle of sheer fabric on the same color as the fashion fabric. It is placed on top of the buttonhole marked set place on the right side. Then a rectangle (the size of the finished buttonhole) is stitched, using a short stitch setting, and then it’s cut (both patch and fabric). The patch fabric is slipped through the resulting hole to the wrong side of the jacket/coat front, and pressed (see the link to the tutorial provided above for more details and pictures). I used black silk organza for the patch, and the resulting “window” is this (right and wrong side):


After stitching both welts together using a long stitch/loose tension setting, I made a few long running stitches using contrasting thread (basting cotton in this case) so I could see the two welt junction and better center it on the buttonhole window:

In the following picture you can see the process of hand sewing the welts to the buttonhole window (take extra care so each stitch goes through all the fabric layers so the resulting welt is sturdy).

This is how it looks on the wrong side; the canvas will have slightly bigger cut out rectangles at the place of the buttonholes and the allowances you see in the picture will pass through those rectangles when the hymo is set in place on the right front piece. These allowances must be trimmed and graded, and finally tacked down to the hymo. I will share some pictures when I get there.

This is how the buttonhole looks on the right side:

In the meanwhile I’ve started hand sewing the satin tapes around the waist of the coat. I will share pictures when I’m done!

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!

Tany’s muslin: Notes on the sleeve alteration and the fit of the neckline

How I reduced the sleeve cap ease and how this alteration is transferred to the paper pattern:

Depending on the fabric and the style intended for the sleeve (and your personal preference), sometimes there's the need to reduce the sleeve cap ease so the sleeve fits better on the armhole. This is not a difficult alteration but I always check the following list first:
- the armhole is correctly designed and there isn’t the need of changing the shoulder seam (this is an important requisite to start with);
- The neckline fits according to the expected
- All the alterations/adjustments needed on the front and back of the coat were already made
- The sleeve, as is originally, hangs correctly from the shoulder and leans slightly to the front, following the natural posture of the arm
- The arm movement is not restrained by the sleeve and there is enough ease along the sleeve to accommodate the arm comfortably
- All there is potentially wrong is the extra ease causing puckers on the sleeve cap (and I say “potentially” because it depends on the fabric you’re using; if you are using wool, on most cases the extra ease can be shrunk to fit the armhole), and/or there’s a little excess fabric on the front or on the back of the sleeve cap (this is easy to correct just by deepening the curve on the referred side of the sleeve cap, removing the excess fabric - again, this is a slight adjustment!).

To evaluate the extent of the cap ease to be removed, I often measure the armhole and the sleeve cap, but just by observing the original sleeve one can have the perception of how much ease needs to go away. I don’t like to exaggerate; this must be a small adjustment and always tested on muslin first, as I did for my coat (if you take off too much ease, the sleeve will rise to the side or will pull the shoulder down!). Here I wanted to take off 2cm of ease and narrow the front cap of the sleeve, because I could see there was too much fabric there. So I took off 1cm of the cap height (making a 5mm deep fold) above the easing notches, and this is how it’s done on paper:

Folded and taped in place:

Trueing the front cap curve, taking a little width off:


Trueing the back cap curve:


The fit of the neckline:

Els brought to my attention that the neckline was a little loose on the first picture of me with the muslin on (front view). I had noticed this before but thought it was due to the not pressed wide SAs inside the collar, but listening to Els advice I went and checked it again. Els advised me to measure the neckline on the pattern and the muslin to see if there has been some stretch due to the neckline not being stabilized. She also suggested that I could compare the pattern with a known pattern from BWOF, for example. When comparing the neckline measure of the muslin with the paper pattern I found out that there was a stretch of less of 1cm, but still this influences the fit of the neckline/collar (this enhances the importance of stabilizing these seams when tailoring; it does make a difference!). When comparing this pattern with a BWOF coat pattern, I also found out that the shoulders of the Patrones have more slope, hence I tried a smaller shoulder pad (with less height) and this was the result (btw, just remembering that this is a mirror image so the sleeve on the left of the picture is the one with the alterations; also, I'm wearing a T-shirt under the muslin here, so it may look a little hollow on me):

I and Els both agreed that there is no need to alter the collar, since it looks almost perfect now. From this example we can all see how little details like the correct shoulder pad or the stabilizing of the neck seam have a great influence on the overall fit of a garment. Thank you Els for taking the time to help me out with this!

Tany’s muslin

So without further ado, here is my muslin. I’m sorry for being late, but adding to the excess of work at the office I also had a neck injury this week.

Ok, so what did I change? First the sleeve; you’ll notice that my left sleeve looks better than the right one; the armhole looked right but I thought that there was too much sleeve cap ease and also excess fabric on the front side of the cap so I made a 0.5cm deep fold perpendicular to the grain line (it takes out 2cm ease of the sleeve cap) and tapered the posterior side of the cap removing the extra fabric there.

The right sleeve cap (it doesn’t seem too wrong in this picture but it felt wrong with the coat on):

The left sleeve cap (after my alterations):

Another thing that I am considering is changing the pocket placement… But I’m not sure yet and I’ll give it some thought first:

As you see in the picture, the pocket opening is on the side seam… I think the pockets would “feel” better if placed on a seam further to the front… But this may alter the balance, because of the horizontal seam you see there:

I also pinched a little excess fabric on the CB, so I think I will add a CB seam too:

One of the things to be determined in the muslin stage is the roll line of the collar; this will be necessary to know when padstitching the undercollar:

Overall, I’m happy with the fit but I’m no fitting expert since I only sew to myself and never had to do major fitting alterations so I’m happy to get your input on this!

Tany’s coat: Initial pattern alterations

I’m a little late on my coat because life sometimes gets in the way, but today my mind is set to get the muslin ready for a first evaluation. Before cutting the muslin, I traced my usual Patrones size (42), tracing the pattern in between the available scaled sizes 40 and 44. This is not difficult to do, and I wrote an article about this procedure some time ago: "Tracing in between Patrones patterns". In the following pictures you’ll see that I traced both 40 and 44 sizes in black, kept the common lines and traced the size 42 lines using a blue pencil; all the alterations made previously to cutting the muslin and trying the coat on me were traced using a red pencil. At the present time I have the pattern ready for cutting the muslin and determine if I need further more alterations. NOTE: the pattern has no SAs included.

This is a straight coat, no flare so I decided to apply the method for adding walking ease explained in the book “Couture, The Art of Fine Sewing” by Roberta Carr. The book explains how to add the walking ease on a basic front pattern; this coat is a little different; you have to imagine the basic front block pattern that lies within the coat pattern for determining the starting point for your new slightly off-grain front edge. Here are some pictures that illustrate how I performed this alteration:

You can see where is my starting point for tracing the new outer edge that passes at ½ inch from the original front edge at the waistline level and prolongs to the hem:


I always measure my pattern before I cut the fabric (or the muslin, in this case). The only obvious alteration was narrowing the waist, since the original pattern corresponds to a waist circumference of 38 ½ inches (measuring the pattern at the waist level, starting at the CF line and not at the front edge), which is too much (my waist measures 30 ¾ inches). So I reduced the pattern waist circumference by 3 ¼ inches, distributed along the vertical seams:

The back:

The front:


Another thing I did was adding the “turn of the cloth” extra to the upper collar, tracing another pattern using the original as a base start (this is just an estimate, since I will test the turn of the cloth on the final coat):

I did something similar on the front facing, at the lapels.

As a final note on this pattern, I'd like to add that Patrones has a funny way to mark the buttonhole placement: either what they call the Center Front line is not the real center front or the buttons are misplaced further to the edge; observing the original model's picture I think that it's the CF line which is not correct so I traced another CF line a closer to the edge; with the muslin on I'll be able to see if I'm right or not.

And this is it! I hope to show you the constructed muslin as soon as possible!

Special care when handling velvet

Adding to Marji's excellent article on sewing specialty and luxury fabrics:

There are many kinds of velvets, depending on the fabric composition, density of the pile and its surface finishing (crushed, burnout, etc). The velvet that I’m going to use is 100%cotton velvet which has been said to be the easiest to handle among velvets because it can be pressed (on the wrong side) and you can even make direct contact with the iron on the pile when you press a seam open. In spite of being the easiest to handle, this fabric requires special care and techniques. I will summarize them for you:

Storing the velvet before cutting: This fabric crushes very easily and it can gain permanent markings and crease lines on the pile side. For this reason, the best way to store it is using an empty roll of fabric and covering it with a muslin remnant to protect it from dust:

Pre-treatment: I’ve read somewhere that 100%velvet can be washed and dried by machine but I don’t do that, because I don’t take the risk of disturbing the evenness of the pile. What I prefer doing is steaming it with a hot iron (normal cotton heat setting and vapor set to its maximum), on the wrong side, applying very light pressure and preferably over a marble surface. The velvet shouldn’t be disturbed until it dries completely (and if you use a marble surface it can take some time to dry). This technique is also indicated if you need to revive old and crushed velvet.

Garments suitable for being made of velvet: simple style lines for fabrics with body, vertical seam details are preferable to horizontal seam details, avoid round seams, no topstitching. Facings may be omitted or sewn using another fabric like satin (when using cotton velvet this is not necessary).

Cutting layout: a single layer “with nap” layout should be used. I prefer cutting against the pile so the color becomes richer and darker.

Marking: Tailor tacks, thread tracing (using silk thread or thin machine embroidery thread), tailor chalk on the wrong side.

Fitting: Making a test garment (muslin/toile) is mandatory since it’s impossible to recover an already stitched/pressed seam; after unstitching it the pile will be creased permanently. Making sure that the fit is perfect and no more alterations will be needed BEFORE stitching the final garment is the only option when using velvet.

Underlining: There’s no need to underline a velvet garment unless you intend to add more structure than the velvet itself already has. Nevertheless, all the other tailoring techniques for supporting the fabric (interfacing, back and chest shields, tailor tape, shoulder pads, etc.) can and should be used.

Interfacing: This is probably the only type of velvet where it’s safe to use fusible interfacings, as long as the interfacing used has a little stretch lengthwise (thanks Paco for this tip). Lightweight sew-on tailoring interfacing can also be used with optimal results. I intend to use both for my coat.

Lining: I prefer full linings for velvet made garments. A bright contrasting lining is my preference for adding more interest to the inside of the garment.

Stitching: Always stitch with the pile; use double basting and/or pins, and a walking foot (even feed foot) if you have one. When pile is hold together against pile, the fabric shifts so one layer will pucker if you don’t use these techniques to prevent this from happening. I’ll use size 80 ballpoint needles, a 2.5 stitch length setting and cotton thread.

Pressing: Use a needle board, a velvaboard or a self fabric cover (with the pile up) on the pressing surface. Self fabric (or a needle board that bends) should be used on the seam roll and the tailor ham. Use paper strips on the underside of the open SAs for preventing imprints, apply light pressure and steam with the iron, using the fingertips to set the seams open while they are moisturized and hot.

Seam finishing: I will make little diagonal cuts along the SAs just to prevent the seams from puckering. If this fabric ravels too much I may zigzag the raw edges, otherwise I’ll leave them as they are. All seams will be pressed open (I think there are no darts on my coat but if there were, they should be cut and pressed open too). I may also tack down the seam allowances (NOTE: if using a free hanging lining, consider binding the SAs.)

Buttonholes: I will run some tests but I will favor bound buttonholes or hand stitched tailored buttonholes.

And this is all for now (I will update this entry with further information later, including pictures and book/website references)