Thimbledore

The original side seam pockets were eensy weensy - even my thinnest winter gloves would barely have fit in them. So I enlarged the pockets by tracing the original pattern piece onto wax paper and sketching in a larger shape. Before cutting any fabric, I held the new pattern piece in place against the coat to be sure it wouldn’t interfere with any other portions of the design. 

To keep the pockets from sagging open, I reinforced the inside edge with twill tape. That stuff doesn’t stretch at all and is great for adding stability. I’m pleased with the the way the plaids match up along the side seams. You can barely tell there’s an in-seam pocket at all. Unfortunately, the pockets do gape a bit when I move around. :(  So sometimes you see these silly-looking flashes of pink. I might go back before this winter comes and retool the pocket area, perhaps  swapping in a darker backing. You learn something new with every project! 

A-heh-heh. I ought not start drafts of coat construction Tumblr posts, then forget about them for several months - the point is to document the process, after all! Oh well. At this stage, things were pretty easy anyway. I backed the lower front with hair canvas to keep it nice and supported. I then sewed the facing to the lining at the assorted side and princess seams. After the fussy work on the bodice, the lower portion of the coat goes together joyfully fast. ^_^

Time to start the lining! The instructions told me to make the bodice, line it, then make the skirt, line it, then join it all at the waist. In hindsight, this is rather bizarre and unnecessarily complicated. If I ever make this coat again, I’ll make the entire shell, then the entire lining, then join them together.

So here, I’ve joined the side-front lining to the front facing. The facing is not made from my pink lining material, but from the same fabric as the shell. This part of the coat is more likely to show, so matching it to the shell looks less conspicuous. The lining is a nice slippery silk crepe de chine, so the coat will slide easily over my clothes, even my bulky winter sweaters. I’m also interlining the bodice and skirt with white flannel for extra warmth (leaving out the sleeves; I tested it out and it made them feel too inflexible).

Before pressing the seam open, I pressed it flat away from the bust (image 3). Personally, I tend to always press seams flat before pressing them open (image 4). Some people think it’s kind of unnecessary, but I just think it helps to set the stitches in the fabric and even out any inconsistencies. I tend to get a crisper final product when I do it that way. Also, it blasts a little steam into the fabric, softening it up before I start trying to coax it this way or that.

This was a breeze after that days-long padstitching task! I sewed the upper collar to the lower collar, leaving the lower edge open. Next, I trimmed/notched/graded the edge seam and pressed it open (image 1). Next, I flipped it right-side-out and did some more pressing, careful not to undo any of my steaming and shaping from the day before.

Usually at this stage, you “favor” the collar’s edge seam, meaning you roll it with your fingers so the seam hides under the collar rather than being super conspicuous along the side, then steam and/or baste it in place. But I purposefully trimmed the lower collar a bit before sewing it to the upper collar (about 1/16” - 1/8” around the edges). When the lower collar’s just a bit small, the seam naturally wants to hide under there and it’s less work for the seamstress. More steaming/pressing, then I stitched the collar onto the completed bodice.

PROGRESS! At this point, I put it on (even though it was just a weird collared vest) and pranced around the apartment for awhile. :D

So, uh… looks like I got so caught up in the process of padstitching that I didn’t photo-document the process until I was all the way to the steaming stage! Oh well. There are so many awesome padstitching tutorials online - I highly recommend the video from from Gertie’s Blog for Better Sewing. But yeah, basically, 2-3 evenings of hand sewing to shape the undercollar.

That slightly tight twill tape encourages the collar to flop in exactly the way I want it to flop. Then the little chevron-shaped stitches grab the fabric in small, regular intervals to shape and support it against the hair canvas. As you can see clearly in pic 3 up there, I didn’t do any padstitching within the seam allowance; the excess hair canvas was trimmed away (see the edges in pic 4) to reduce bulk in the seams.

After it was all padstitched, I pinned the collar around a tailor’s ham, arranging it the way I’d like it to lie around my neck. Then I steamed the everliving hell out of it with my iron (applying no pressure - steam clouds only) and left it to dry overnight. The instructions said I should apply fusible interfacing to the upper collar, but I chose not to; that lower layer is so extra, mega supported by the hair canvas that I thought it didn’t need it.

Collar shaping time! The collar on this coat is… not subtle. XD A normal shawl collar (like this) is usually cut as part of the bodice and then folded back. Threads Magazine has a nice image that compares it to the typical notched collar. This modified shawl collar is sewn on as a separate piece and extends way out over the bust. That center back seam helps it snug up against the curve of the neck. Can I just mention plaid-matching this was a sonofabitch? Consider it mentioned.

This collar was a BEAR to fit. First, the fabric pooled like mad over the collarbone during the muslin stage, as though there were several extra inches there. I played around until I finally realized I was underestimating how high the collar was meant to stand. Once I pinned it so that the back of the collar almost touched my hairline before folding over, the front portions fell into place much more smoothly. I do wish patternmakers would draw on the suggested roll line! We end users can always change it, but that one little drawing would take some guesswork out of placement.

Later, during assembly of the final coat, I realized that the points of the exaggerated collar reached down so far over the bust that they covered the buttons/buttonholes. I kind of need to be able to close my coat, so I grudgingly ripped out some work and changed the angle of the lower collar edges so they’d get out of the way. Quite annoying!

All tailoring is done on the lower collar piece only (the underside, if you will). The upper collar will benefit from the lower collar’s sewn-in support, but it gets to lay nicely over the top like icing on a cake. The entire lower collar is reinforced with hair canvas (minus the seam allowances, where it’d just add unnecessary bulk). I basted the entire length of the roll line and then applied twill tape (a la Gertie’s tutorial, modified a bit for the shawl setup). The chalk lines will be my guidelines for padstitching, the frankly magical process by which the fabric is coaxed into holding a soft, permanent fold. More on that next post.

Front’s all set, back’s all set — let’s get this badass bodice put together! A total no-brainer. Place the front and back together, right sides touching. Sew along the shoulders and sides, then flip it open and press the seams. A very satisfying step, since (a) it’s super quick and (b) it results in something you can actually put on your body like a proper garment, rather than just holding it up against yourself and going, “Yeah… yeah, I think that’ll work.” It started to feel like a real coat at this point.

You can start to see how the plaid lines are going to come together. I didn’t do a perfect job, but it looks pretty good overall. I like how those the distinct white lines meet and form a wide Y shape right at the fullest part of the princess seam bust curve.