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!

Claire S. - V8346, what am I doing wrong ?

Here we go again - Sleeves had diagonal wrinkles - after checking Els' instructions, I unpicked the sleeves and moved the shoulder dot forward about 1/2"

The wrinkles seem worse than before, should I have just left the sleeves alone or done something other than moving the shoulder dot forward ? And any ideas what to do now ?

The pics show tonight's change first - compared against the same view(s) from my last post.

Back...



Right side...


Left Side

Claire S. - V8346 - I've got Sleeves !!!

I've made it through another attempt at sleeves.

The McCalls sleeve was giving me trouble and I was still fighting with it (it was winning...) when I saw the Threads instructions for converting 1-pc sleeves.

I psyched myself up and spent 2 evenings tracing and redrafting the 1-pc Vogue sleeve into a 2-pc sleeve and here are the results...

Front & Back :


There are 2 right sides here, the one taken in the shade looked pretty good till I saw how the sun really showed up the wrinkles.


I've just seen Els' post on the diagonal wrinkle problem and I guess I'm going to have to move the notch forward a bit on the right sleeve. I don't think I have to do anything to the left sleeve, do I ?

The last time I asked about resetting a sleeve I was told to take the whole thing out and set it in from scratch...is it the same now ? Would I be able to unpick the basting on the back of the armhole seam and just ease it all forward a bit ? I didn't gather the ease between the notches, I pretty much eased most of the armhole - just left the underarm with no easing, about 4-5" or so.

Looking at the whole body shot again from the side, I see the waistline is not actually level yet...CF is still higher than CB. I think I'll adjust this yet again, CB needs to come up at least another 1/2".

So, any thoughts, re: the sleeves or anything else you may see ?

Claire S. - V8346, still working on sleeves

I'm hoping I'm not the only one still having trouble with the muslin - I know we're supposed to be cutting real fabric by now.

I've read everything I could get my hands on - the more I read, the more confused I got.

Sooooo, I'm ignoring the left sleeve for now. I don't think splitting it to add width was necessary, the fit of the original sleeve was ok. I think the problem lies in either,

1) the depth of the armhole (too low) or

2) the shoulder width - are the shoulders on my jacket too wide for me ? some of those many wrinkles seem to match up with the 'narrow shoulder' problems in my books - Fitting Finesse & Fast Fit

I worked only on the right sleeve...

- some said to balance the sleeve, move the shoulder dot forward

- others said move it backwords

I tried both. Neither seemed to work too well, I still could not raise my arm.

I focused on the armhole instead

I raised it 1/2" (added 1/2" at the bottom of the armhole on the body of the muslin).

I reset the sleeve by putting on the bodice, sliding the sleeve on my arm and fiddling with it til it hung straight then basted it in.

I forgot to allow for "I could only see the front while doing this" ! While the front of the sleeve seems to fall pretty straight, the back has lots of wrinkles. It's as though I have no shoulder in the back, it's all empty air under there. This is why I'm wondering about the narrow shoulder.

The fix for a narrow shoulder in Fast Fit has you take a copy of the armhole seam and tilt it so the shoulder width is less and the armhole rises up the same amount - this MAY fix my problem. But how would I accomplish this on this muslin which is all sewed up, would I have to undo it all and start again ?

Any opinions anyone ? My muslin is looking worse instead of better I'm afraid.

Here are the pics of the right arm after raising the armhole and 'fiddling' with the hang of the sleeve. The shoulder pad is in there, but I don't know if it is sitting in the right place. And the bonus to this is, even though it's not looking really good, I CAN lift my arm a bit higher.