BWOF 9-2006-104 (trench coat): Complete

The coat is done!  Though it took a lot of movement from the universe to make this happen, it is finally completed.  

Fabric & Notions

• 3 yards of cotton navy twill (stash; Fabric Mart)
• 3 yards of plaid silk broadcloth (stash; Fabric Mart)
• 1 package of red piping (stash; source unknown)
• fusible interfacing (Mood NYC)
• navy mottled buttons (Wawak)
• navy mottled belt buckle (Mood NYC)
• short piece of twill tape to use for hanging
• bias cut fleece strips for sleeve heads
• muslin for back stay
• 80/12 universal needle (for shell)
• 70/10 microtex needle (for lining)
• regular sewing and serger thread

Size and Pattern Alterations:  I traced and cut a straight size 44 for my muslin.  I compared the pieces to another shoulder princess seamed coat (Indygo Junction 740) and was happy to see that not many changes were needed.  I used 5/8" seam allowances all around.  I sewed 3/4" seams at the start of the shoulder princess seam on both the front and back as a cheater narrow-shoulder adjustment.  Then, I tapered to 5/8" above the bust and 1/2" at the bust for a little extra room.

I did a 1" swayback adjustment by removing the length completely in the waist area and adding the amount to the hem.  This way, the side back seam lengths remained the same.

I took out a 1" wedge below the neckline; the muslin showed a bit of bunching in this area.

I also shortened the sleeves 3 inches (1.5 inches in two places).

I did not add a hem allowance since the "unfinished" length was slightly longer than what I wanted.

Instructions:  My brain was no match for this Burda word salad.  In addition to the instructions being sparse and confusing, you are to jump back and forth to other views for different parts.  Yeah no.  To construct the majority of the coat, I used the instructions for McCall's 5525.   To make the inseam pockets and pocket flaps, I used the ironically less confusing word salad from Burda 8-2009-107. 

Construction:  Sewing the shell was pretty straight forward; it's cotton after all.  The fabric was easy to work with and pressed beautifully.  The lining, on the other hand, was a pain in the ass.  Me and slippery fabrics just don't get along; plus the lining is a plaid.  It's an even plaid, but still.  Even though I pinned carefully and sewed slowly, I only managed to marginally match the plaid.  Using a walking foot made it WORSE! 

I brought this on my self.  =)  I had to have THIS lining with THIS fabric come hell or high water.  Yeah well, it was hell on high water, but I made it work.

Front/Front Facing Problem:  As many suggested and as I suspected, the lengths of the front and front facing were off.  Somehow, the front was 1/4 to 1/2 an inch longer than the facing.  This minute amount caused the massive amount of pulling.  I must have erred in tracing/measuring - despite checking my work twice.  Oh well.  

Kenneth D. King fixed it by taking a deeper hem and trimming the excess.  He also corrected the pattern by creating new stitching lines on both the facing and front.  The fix resulted in the coat being shorter, but it at least it's not pulling wildly like before.  I was ready to send this coat to a watery death in the Detroit River.  

I had the coat professionally pressed by my dry cleaner.   

Other:  I removed the sleeve loops because they were way too close to the hem.  If I make this pattern again, I will move the placement lines up 1.5 to 2 inches so that they're more proportionally positioned.

I added some red piping between the facing and lining because why not?  I did this on my last two coats and really like it.

The one thing I'm bummed about is the wrinkling along the bust curve.  

I picked and restitched this area a couple of times and steam-pressed it over and over.  Of course it's on the side that's not covered by the flap.  o_O  If I had enough fabric, I would have recut the side front panel and sewed it again.  Oh well.

I used navy mottled buttons in two sizes (large for the front and small for the epaulettes and belt loops).  It was surprisingly difficult to find a navy mottled belt buckle.  Thank you Mood!

Conclusion:  I am very happy with coat.  It will serve as a great transition between seasons or whatever we call the days between hot and arctic in Michigan.

As for the pattern, this was my trial run for my super warm tundra-life winter coat.  I don't know if I will use this pattern for that.  Even though Kenneth fixed the length issue, I don't want to run into the same problem again.  Maybe I'll make a muslin of the front with facing just to be sure it works.  I plan to go all-in (pad stitching, hair canvas, interlining) with the coat and want to make sure everything is sound first.

Up next:  Probably another coat or two.  And maybe some more pants.  I still haven't given up on Starting from Scratch.  I'm in turtle mode for a while.

Until next time, peace!

L

Going to Need A LOT of Magic Closet

So.  Much.  Magic.  Closet.  I'm talking Narnia here.

Sigh.

I separated the lining from the facing two inches up from the hem and still cannot get rid of the horrible pulling.  The right side (shown above) is not nearly as bad as the left side.  The lining is no longer attached to the hem and is left to hang loose.

I've made three lined coats and three lined jackets.  I've never seen anything like this before.

It seems as if the front is longer than the front facing.  When I pulled up the front and pinned it, the pulling somewhat disappeared.

I carefully measured every seam line on the front, front facing, and lining and found one discrepancy of 1/2".  Everything else was pretty close with a margin of error of 1/8" - surely not enough to cause this much trouble.  Right?

I didn't use steam when fusing the interfacing, so I don't think shrinkage is the culprit.  Plus, interfacing is fused to both the front and front facing.  If the interfacing is to blame, it seems like both pieces would suffer the same fate.

The coat fabric was pre-washed, dried, and steam pressed prior to cutting the pattern.  My wool jackets were only steam pressed and the other three coats weren't pretreated at all.  This problem is a mystery.

So off to the magic closet it goes.  After some considerable time off from this coat, I'll go back and reattach the facing-lining unit by taking out that excess fabric near the collar.

I momentarily considered removing the lining completely and replacing it with some Ambiance rayon.  But, I'm not comfortable with discarding this lining...yet.  It matches the vision in my head and I can't shake that image.

Oh well.  

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.  I've started working on fall clothes since that seems to be lacking right now.

Until next time, peace!

L

Need Your Help!

I've been working on a trench coat for the past couple of weeks.  Things were going along smoothly and as I neared the finish, this happened:

What.  The.  What.

Never mind the wonkiness of the sleeves; the lining is attached, but not pulled all the way through.

There is some serious WTFery going on with the front facings and I don't know what to do.

The pattern is BWOF 9-2006-104.  I cut size 44 and made a few alterations (to be detailed in a future post).  I doubt the alterations have anything to do with the facing issue.  I checked and double checked seam lengths etc. before cutting the fashion fabric.  I did *not* do an FBA, so there were no substantial changes to the front or front facings.

The shell is 100% cotton twill with no stretch; the lining is 100% silk broadcloth.

When cutting out the fashion fabric, I added the seam allowances right on the fabric.  This is what I do with all patterns that don't already have seam allowances.  I've not had any problems doing it this way.  

However, I did add seam allowances to the lining pieces first since (1) the lining is a slippery silk and (2) it's plaid.  I carefully cut each lining piece in a single layer and used a rotary cutter to decrease the risk of shifting.

The shell and lining pieces were definitely cut on grain; I'm a little neurotic about this.  I may cut corners in other areas of sewing, but not with establishing and matching the grain.

The hem is supposed to be 1.5 inches.  So, I removed 1 inch from the lining pattern pieces with the intention of bagging the lining and having a o.5-inch jump pleat for a bit of vertical ease. (Edited to add: Actually the jump pleat will be slightly less than 0.5 inches due to sewing the lining to the hem. The pleat will probably measure about 0.25 inches.)

To attach the facing to the front, I folded the facing back, right sides together, and stitched across the facing 1.5 inches from the bottom.  When I turned the facing right side out, this is what I get on both sides:

The front facing length is the same as the front length.  I figured I could trim the extra bit off after the facing was attached (as shown below).  Do you see the bubble?  I don't understand what went wrong.  When I removed the horizontally-sewn stitches, the bubble disappeared.

I thought that perhaps I measured something incorrectly and "added" the cut piece back by doing a little surgery.

The bubble is still there.

I thought about this a lot after taking and staring at the photos.  I think something may be fishy about the lining-facing seam.  The last two photos are when the jacket is "at rest," i.e., without me holding it.

Could this be the source of the weird front pulling?

I am confident I shortened the front lining piece 1".  I checked the pattern piece and see the notation.  The strange thing is this lining piece seam is the same length as the facing piece seam which WAS NOT shortened.  I know I shortened it because the other lining seam length matches the side front seam length.  That wouldn't have been the case if I hadn't made the alteration.

Sigh.

Any suggestions??  Pleeeeeeeease.  I put a lot of work into this coat and am not ready to give up.  I have more of the fabric to cut new facings, but I don't have any more lining and can't get any more.

I was two minutes away from sewing the buttonholes, but I was worried about how they would sew with the weird pulling in the facing.

I unpicked all of the topstitching and "unbagged" the lining so that I can get this right.

I really appreciate any ideas or help you can give!

Thanks!

L

Catching Up

Deniece Williams' song "Free" is running non-stop in my mind.  It's not because I've found 'the one', though.  It's because the semester is over, grades are in, and I am FREE!  So actually the chorus is just stuck in my mind.  My students always think that I will miss them.  This is the one time that I actually discourage thinking.  Hah!

 

Anyway, the countdown is now set to 0.  Bring on the summer fun!

 

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts on following pattern instructions.  I largely agree with everyone's comments.  I guess in sewing this trench coat, I became aware of just how sporadic my sewing can be!  From jumping around in the sewing order to cutting out only necessary pieces, I definitely don't go by the book. 

 

I started channeling my inner super-alien-shape-shifting-sewing-goddess and sewed TWO tops and started work on a third.  I also have a jacket ready to cut out and sew.  Holla!

 

I used my TNT knit top pattern, New Look 6648, and rayon spandex.  I forgot to shorten the neckline on the brown/black one, so the top is a bit too wide.  It's wearable, but I have to fuss with it so that my bra isn't always showing.  I didn't forget on the purple/black and I like the neckline much better.

What about the trench coat?  Well...see...what had happened was...

 

The shell is completed.  All I need to do is construct the lining, sew a thousand buttonholes, and attach the buttons.  None of that will happen until I cut out the rest of the lining pieces and, honestly, that's probably not going to happen any time soon. =/

I did find a solution to the not-enough-buttons issue.  I'm going to make my own!  I'll talk about that later.

Hmm.  What else?

I go hard at the gym and still gain weight.  WTF?  I know muscle weighs more than fat, but damn!  Can a girl see SOME progress?

I made a giant pot  (about 2 feet) at the studio a couple of weeks ago.  I have pictures on my phone that I'll share...eventually.

That's all for now.  I'm exhausted.  Until next time, peace!

L

 

McCall's 5525 (trench coat): Progress

After finally catching a break from busy times at work, I got a chance to sew this weekend.  My trench coat is coming along slowly, but surely.

Remember these pictures?

Yeah, I didn't use any of this.  Hah.  I was looking forward to working some silk magic but ended up ditching that idea in the end.  I still plan to make the navy blue trench coat, but for fall instead of now.  The red stretch cotton sateen was a world of swears waiting to happen, so back to the stash it goes.

I went traditional with a sandy-colored cotton twill with a hint of sheen on the right side.  Despite the dull color, this was the right choice of fabric.  It's not too heavy and presses nicely.

I'm sort of half-following the instructions.  I completed the back first and fiddled around with the front - filling in blanks as I needed.  For example, I made the button hole in the back yoke before attaching it to the back.  Why in the world would you want to work a buttonhole after the whole coat is constructed?  In fact, the instructions save all of the buttonholes until the end.  O_o  Who thought this was a good idea? #FailWaitingToHappen

I'm not feeling the gun flap.  I hadn't pressed it yet in this picture, but have since then.  I'll give it another day on the dress form before deciding to keep or ditch it.  I don't know why it's puckering like this.  Maybe I needed to adjust the flap for the FBA.

I included a back stay out of pre-washed muslin.  I do this on (almost) all jackets and coats.

The jacket and sleeve hems are interfaced as well.  For some reason I thought the hem was 5/8" so I cut strips just slightly larger than that.  Then I read (somewhere) that the hems are 1 5/8".  Oops. 

Here's where the coat stands.  I have to refit the sides and decide on the gun flap before I can go on to the epaulettes.  In the meantime, I tried out button ideas and I think the dark brown buttons make the jacket look timeless.  Problem is:  I only have ten buttons and I need eleven.  I bought the buttons over a year ago and can't find them anymore.  Waaaah. 

That's all for now.  Until next time, peace!

L

Next Project: Trench Coat

Apparently I can't stay away from time-consuming and challenging sewing projects for too long!  I've been eying a trench coat for weeks and now that I have the fabric, game is on.

My first thought was to use a red stretch cotton sateen, but since acquiring a REALLY NICE navy cotton twill, I am thinking about using it instead.  I bought three yards of the twill with the intention of making a jacket and pencil skirt.  But I can't shake the idea of using it for the trench coat.  Hmmmmm....maybe I should make two trench coats...

I was also concerned about topstitching the stretch fabric and what type of interfacing to use.  I made a skirt out of stretch cotton sateen, but...uh...that's not a coat. =)  

In the meantime, I made a couple of pattern alterations and a muslin of McCall's 5525.  So far, things look pretty good.  I'll detail the changes I made in the next post.


Until next time, peace!

L