Coat Sew Along - Done!

Yea, yea, I know I'm not looking too hot. Colds will do that to a person.



Flasher! I love this lining.

All buttoned up.

I'm proud of the back because that is where I always have fitting issues.

I inside button. I think the little buttonhole looks funny on the lapel but whatever. I am pleased with the coat overall.

Here is the review on PatternReview.com.

Coat Sew Along - Lining

I've made a bit of progress on The Coat and I thought I would post a tip. I used those garage sale stickers to keep the back and front sorted out. This is dark purple melton wool and it's hard to decipher the right side. I figured the best offense was a good defense. I attached these stickers to the wrong sides of the fabric as I was cutting so I would always know which side was which. These stickers barely stick to regular garage sale things so I knew that them leaving behind residue was not going to be a problem. Before I fused on the interfacing, I removed them of course. That, and they amuse me. These stickers say Make An Offer.


I took several full length photos of the coat but they were all blurry, dark, and crappy. So I settled on two that turned out okay. This is the princess seam detailing with one of the belt loops and belt.


Is this lining kick ass or what? This fabric is from Gorgeous Fabrics (which is having a 20% off sale, btw!) and after-the-fact I asked Ann if she had some lining that would look nice with the purple. Boy did she ever.

All I have left is to attach the wigan (I know, I was supposed to do this the other day), attach the lining sleeves to the fabric sleeves, sew the hem, attach buttons, sew buttonholes, do a lot of pressing, and do a little topstitching.

It seems like a lot now that I wrote it all out. Hopefully I'll have it done by the end of the week.

Moving Slowly

Well, Alex won the Jalie pattern. Good for her! I wanted to participate in the contest but am feeling a bit overwhelmed by this wool coat. I don't have too much left to do on it so hopefully I'll be done in a day or two. We had new windows put in our house as part of an energy audit so that has transformed my sewing room into a mess.

This is what I will try to accomplish today.

• All belt loops on coat.
• Sew together lining.
• Attach wigan to sleeves and hem. (Maybe I'll still get this done. It only takes 10-15 minutes for all of it.)

Yea, not much I know but this cold is kicking my butt and my sewing room is a mess. I'll check in later today and update this post. Hopefully I'll be able to cross those things off the list.

I'm Not Off-Task

I'm not off-task right now, I'm just making sure I use all of my sewing time. See, I was fusing wool coating pieces all morning and then! Then, I ran out of interfacing! So, I had to wash it and now it is drying in the bathroom. I have been working on this instead of just sitting around, or cleaning, yuck.

In my last post, I saw that HotPatterns dress and I fell in love. I have made up a quick muslin to see if it is something I can do. I think soooo! It's a quick muslin so I used random thread and didn't waste any time making it look nice. This is a cheapy poly knit that has static like you can't believe. I know it looks kind of blah in the photos but I think it will be cute. I think I need to flare the hem a bit too. The BWOF pattern is very straight and the HP ones seems to be more A-line.


I increased the brightness and contrast so you can kind of see the details. It is still hard to see. There are not as many gathers as there are on the HotPatterns dress so I slashed and spread some more. The "real" knit is thicker and a bit stretchier.

Procrastinating

I've got most of my underlining for my wool coat for the Coat Sew Along. But what am I doing instead of ironing it on?? Procrastinating. I saw the 'New HotPatterns' thread at patternreview.com and I'm in love with this new dress of theirs. I think I could totally knock it off using these two BWOF patterns. I am trying very hard to not buy patterns because I have this spendy BWOF subscription.


This is from the current 11/2008 issue. I'd use this for the base and add the v-neck and gathers.




I also have this 6/2004 issue. It has s a deep v-neck that I could use to compare to the raglan top. I just don't know how exactly to make the gathers. I assume I'll slash and spread but I've never done it before. On PR someone said that Debbie Cook had done some notes on one she did earlier. I searched her blog a few times but came up empty handed.

I also really like the dress on the back left.


Back the The Coat.

Coat Sew Along - Interfacing

So here's an article from Threads about Armani jackets. They fuse-interface the entire jacket. Is that really what I should be doing???? I have access to nice horse hari canvas here in town so I can buy it whenever. Should the whole thing be interfaced with it? It looks like this shows "body weight" and lighter and heavier than "body weight". What is body weight?? My jacket isn't exactly like this. There isn't a roll line for the body of thecoat, just the collar. The directions for the coat say to interface the entire thing. Hmmmmmmm. I don't want to do the sew-in interfacing. If I did, I see the post on the Coat Sew Along site about where to interface it.

More pondering.


Click and you can see the entire picture.

My Sunday

I finally feel better after my weekend cold. I set up my big cutting table on the dining room table and cut out a bunch of things.

1. KS 3567 in size small for me. It's a thin gray sweatshirt knit that is cozy. I'm making the round collar this time. DONE
2. KS 3567 in size medium for my mom in blue microfleece. I plan to add a front zipper to this but want to think about it first. DONE
3. KS 3567 in the medium size again for my MIL. My mom and MIL are getting matching tops for Christmas. I'm totally okay with that. The zipper colors will be different. DONE
4. BWOF 11/06 #138 The second girl coat in a blue XALT Burlington Windproof/waterproof breathable laminate. DONE
5. OW 05/2008 #5. These are the cargo pants in a size 34. I am hoping that this Ottobre pattern works so I can make a pair of jeans that are loose-fitting. I cut these out of a cheapy muslin fabric just to check the fit. Did the muslin fit. Too small but looks promising.
6. My wool coat!!!! I actually cut out my wool coat pieces. Perhaps I'll join the Coat Sew Along blog again and participate. It's Burda 8022. NEED INTERFACING

Hopefully by tonight I'll be able to show a little more progress. I hope to have the grey knit top done so I can wear it to school tomorrow. It's chilly in my classroom.

Coat Sew-Along: Thread and Buttons

There is a bit of topstitching on this coat and I know that the look of the topstitching will really make or break the coat. I have used my sample to sew several lines of topstitching to see what I liked the most. I have narrowed it down to two but can't decide which is best. From left to right:

• Gutterman topstitching thread in a medium brown (no spool shown). I like the thickness of this thread but it comes on little, tiny spools. Actually the spools aren't small but the thread is so thick there just isn't much thread on each spool. My local JoAnn's does not have a suitable purple in this style of thread. They have a grape jell-o color and that is it in the purple arena. Totally not suitable for a dark eggplant wool. My personal motto is: either match the color perfectly or make it very different. Otherwise it looks like you just don't know what you are doing.
• Gutterman upholstery thread in grey. I wouldn't use the grey but I just wanted to see how it looked. This is thick thread and it comes in greater quantity. This type of thread comes in very limited colors. I use it for topstitching all the time.
• Gutterman Heavy-Duty thread. I have never used this type of thread but it is the perfect color for my coat. It is 100% polyester. It is thicker than the regular, all-purpose sewing thread but not as thick as the topstiching or upholstery thread. It doesn't seem to be as shiny as the upholstery thread either. I made two rows of stitches to play with my tension.
• Gutterman Upholstery thread again. This is the thread I used to topstitch my BWOF Alaska coat. It actually goes very nicely with the wool too. Now I just have to decide between the purple and the brown.

Here you can see the buttonsI plan to use and you can see the topstitchng in more detail. The flash makes everything much lighter than it actually is. The buttons are very dark brown, almost black. You can see in this picture how much thicker the real topstitching thread (brown on bottom) is.



BTW: Thanks for your comments on the BWOF Alaska coat. Yes, my husband was the photographer and yes he liked it. ;) And no, Dawn is not having more babies. We wanted two, got three. We're done. We've taken care of it; and I made him double and triple check at the doctor's office. Kristine, you go girl!

Coat Sew-Along Muslin with Tweaks

Here is the muslin tweaked a bit. I'm not sure why the pictures are so dark.

• I took in the back, right above my butt, about two inches and tapered to nothing at the hem and mid-back. I think this is similar to a sway-back adjustment but I'm not sure about that either. That way, it is more snug around my back but leaves ample room for my backside too.
• I shortened the length by two inches. You can see the horizonal line running behind the bottom set of buttons. Obviously that line will not be there on the real version. I left the belt loops alone since making that two inch tuck made the loops higher. I really like where the belt is now. The belt is at high hip.

I wanted to make sure that the "butt-grip" factor was not an issue today. This is unlined because it is a muslin and it kept bunching up. Today I wore a long tricot slip to act as a lining. I pulled it up to my armpits and let the bottom act as a "lining" for my coat. It seemed to work well except it was too long and kept hanging out the bottom.

I really like this fabric. It is a cheapy Joann's acrylic/poly blend. I may try to get some tweedy wool to make this coat because I like how the striped chevron on the back and princess seams.

Now, I am going to leave this project a alone for a while and sew along with the Coat Sew-Along folks. I have a hard time stopping when I get going on a project.

Coat Sew Along Muslin

I don't want to be the first to post my coat over at the main blog for the coat sew-along so I'll post it here instead. I am intimidated by such sewing prowess the ladies (no gentlemen, right?) over on that blog exhibit. That, and muslins are happening in June. I jumped the gun a bit. So, I'll post my muslin here and then post it there when I get brave . . . tee hee. I know, I'm a dork.

So, overall I like the pattern but something has to be done about the belt. It crosses at my widest part. That can't be good. The shoulder area, where I always have problems, fits great. I cut a 36 grading to a 38 in the hip region. My "buttons" are black circles I made on my computer and printed out. These are 1.25" but I made some larger and smaller to test drive the sizes.

The back is really bad because the belt sits right at the top of my butt. Everything wants to bunch up on top of it. This does not have a lining so part of that problem will go away when I line it. Now it is grippy and rides up. But look at how nicely the shoulders fit.

This is where the belt sits when I pull it down and hold still for the camera. Improvement but it makes my butt look large.

This is below my natural waist but above the pattern placement. I think it is an improvement.

This is on my lower back but above my butt.

This is the jacket all buttoned up.

Here it is at natural waist. I like it up there but then it messes up the buttons. What do you guys think?

Here is the shoulder region. I did a .25" tuck for a high bust and forgot to take a tuck out of the shoulders. I did that after I cut. That is why there is a strange fold on the shoulders. These sleeves were actually easy to set in. I am just as impressed with the Burda envelope patterns as I am the Burda WOF patterns. The fit is nice. I just have to figure out what is going on at the hip region.

And yes, I'm still waiting for my May Burda WOF. sniff.