Herringbone Coat: Finished!

My "Herringbone Coat" is finished! Here are some photos of the completed coat, along with a few little details. . .

Front and back:

                                                                     Finished collar:

                                                                Back sleeve detail:

                                          In-seam pocket at the side of the coat.

The bound buttonholes are now open and ready for use!

                                   
I braided the button "stems" using the YSL technique from Claire Shaeffer's Couture Sewing Techniques to lift the buttons from the surface of the coat and help them to sit nicely in the buttonholes. When sewing them in place, I also reinforced them from the wrong side by sewing through small, clear buttons (these are visible in the full-lining shot in the post about the lining).

Large snaps, covered with lining material, fasten the under-lap instead of buttons. They are sewn to the facing, directly beneath the ornamental buttons that are sewn to the outside. Tany at Couture et Tricot has posted an excellent tutorial for covered snaps, which I found so helpful when making these (thank you, Tany, for sharing your technique!).

                  Understitching at the pocket opening helps hold the pocket lining neatly in place.

                  
The wool was somewhat difficult to photograph, as it tends to appear differently under various light souces, but I've tried to adjust the images as best I can (the two photos of the pockets are the most accurate).

I'm so excited to have this finished! It's been a long project, but I've really enjoyed the opportunity to practice my tailoring skills, and I'm grateful to God for giving me the time and resources to undertake this project :-)   

Herringbone Coat: Lining and Interlining

Because the fashion fabric for my coat is lightweight, I decided to use an interlining for a little extra warmth. I prepared the lining panels for this step at the beginning of the project by basting a layer of cotton flannel to the back of each piece.

After doing this, it was just a matter of assembling the lining pieces as usual, except that the interlining seam allowances must be trimmed close to the stitching, to reduce bulk at the seamlines. Before stitching the lining to the coat, I also trimmed the interlining within the hem allowance and hemmed the lining by machine.

I used the machine to attach the main portion of the lining to the coat, as I needed to save the time it would have taken me to do it by hand. After the main portion was secured in place, the sleeves were set to the armholes with slip-stitching.

At the center back of the lining, there is a pleat for ease of movement. The interlining material wasn't too thick, so I made a small center-back pleat in this piece, as well, though I pressed it in the opposite direction of the pleat in the outer lining before basting the two panels together.

 

The lower edge of the lining is hemmed separately from the coat and is held close the coat hem by swing tacks. The photo above offers a peek at the flannel interlining.

 

When drafting the pattern pieces for the lining, I modified the top of the back lining panel make to room for a neck facing. It wasn't totally necessary, but I wanted this coat to have one. After all, it makes a nice spot to stitch in a label!

 

The label fabric is from a piece of pinwale corduroy that I found in my scrap box. A bit unusual, perhaps, but it provides some textural contrast. I stabilized the wrong side of the corduroy with a piece of sew-in interfacing, and experimented with the embroidery stitches on my mom's Kenmore machine. Once I found a design that I liked, I trimmed away the excess interfacing, turned under the edges of the label, and slip-stitched it to the facing at the back of the neck.

Herringbone Coat: Hem Interfacing

Just a quick post with a photo showing how I interfaced the hem of the coat - at this point it's very close to being finished, as I've set the sleeves and also attached the shoulder pads and sleeve heads (no pictures of the latter two, unfortunately). 

I referred to the Tailoring book for this step and have completed the hems of both the lower coat and sleeves. The hem is interfaced with wide strips of bias-cut hair canvas, which helps bear the weight of the hem allowance and lends a bit of "body" to the hem. After this, the fullness of the hem allowance is eased up with a row of machine basting and shrunk with steam. Finally, the interfacing strips are secured to the coat with hand stitching, and the hem allowance is the secured to then interfacing strips.

  Almost there! The main part of lining will be attached by machine, so hopefully I'll soon be able to post pictures of a finished coat :-)

Herringbone Coat: Two-Piece Sleeves

As I mentioned when introducing project, I decided to substitute a two-piece sleeve from another coat pattern for the one-piece sleeve in the pattern for this coat. My reason for doing this is simply that two-piece sleeves can often provide a nice fit and range of motion because they're of the way they're drafted, with ease at elbow joint and a slightly curved arm, so that the sleeve hem will fall toward the front of the body (similar shaping is also achieved in a single-piece sleeve with an elbow dart). Even when the arm hangs at the side of the body, it's still slightly bent, so the shaping of the sleeve accommodates this, as well as allowing the arm to bend easily.

The pattern consists of an upper panel and and undersleeve panel. I borrowed both the sleeve and it's armhole from Simplicity 4403 (now out of print) and aligned the armhole with the shoulder point and side seams of the Butterick bodice before cutting out my muslin.

 

The simplicity pattern instructions use basting stitches to ease in the elbow shaping of the sleeve, but I found that it worked well to ease in the fullness with extra pins and place the side of the sleeve that needed to be eased toward the feed dogs of the machine when stitching, using the movement of the feed dogs to pull in the extra fabric.

 

 After completing the first seam of the upper and under sleeve, I pressed the curved area over a tailor's ham so that the seam would be smooth. For the second seam, I used a seam roll.

This picture of the back of the sleeve shows how it's curved toward the front of the body, even though the coat is just on my dressform and the sleeve is hanging "straight."

Herringbone Coat: Upper Collar and Front Facing

At the time of my last post, I was working on the seams of the lower coat, which included in-seam pockets. The lower center front panels coat also needed to be interfaced, but since they didn't need as much shaping as bodice, I decided to interface these panels with muslin rather than hair canvas. As the pictures show, my progress has jumped ahead quite a bit; the skirt portion of the coat has been seamed to the bodice, and the upper collar and facing have been attached, too.

Since the wool that I used for this coat is the same weight as recommended by the patten, I didn't need to adjust the under collar for the "turn-of-cloth," as I found it had already been accounted for.

Though none of these photos show it, I modified the back lining pattern to include a back neck facing. This way, the facing from the front continues around to the back of the coat (this was not absolutely necessary; it was simply a detail I preferred).  

Once the upper collar and facing were seamed to the coat, I followed the tailoring instructions in the RD Complete Guide to Sewing to trim, grade, clip and press the seam of the collar and center front. They're very detailed and I always find them helpful when dealing with is step in my jackets or coats. After this, I rolled the seam toward the under collar and used tailor-basting (the diagonal white stitches in the photo) to hold it in place for hand-understitching and more steaming.

With the facing covering the inside of the coat front, openings needed to be made in order to access the wrong side of the bound buttonholes. Usually this can be done by simply cutting a slit the length of the buttonhole, turning under the raw edge, and slip-stitching it to the back of the buttonhole, but since my fabric tends to fray, I opted for a different technique called the "windowpane" method. This involves using a patch of facing to make a little window where the front facing meets the buttonhole.

 

 I used silk organza for the facing patches because it's strong and presses crisp at the edges. 

On the right side of the facing, it yields a neat little window that will be slip-stitched in place around the back of the bound buttonhole.

Herringbone Coat: In -Seam Pockets

Since the construction has come to the point where I can add the lower part of the coat, the panels of the "skirt" portion need to be assembled. For the most part this is pretty simple, since most of the seams are straight, but I thought I'd share a picture showing a few details of the in-seam pockets.  

First of all, each pocket panel is backed with a layer of cotton batiste. Since the lining fabric is somewhat thin, the batiste is there to take some of the strain of wear and lengthen the life of the pocket.

Furthermore, the pocket opening has been reinforced with a strip of silk organza to prevent it from stretching out of shape (this is on the other side of the pocket, so it's not visible above). I also added small squares of organza to the areas of the seam where the back seam allowances must be clipped.

Finally, after the pocket was finished, I cut a strip of cotton batiste on the lengthwise grain and used it to make a "stay" that connects the top of the pocket to the waist seam at the side-front skirt panel. This will uphold the pocket and pull it toward the front of the coat, where it belongs. Otherwise, it droops to a lump at the side seam . . . not flattering!  

Herringbone Coat: Padstitching the Collar/Lapels

Now that the stand of the collar is all filled in with padstitching, the "fall" of the collar, or the area that drapes down from the roll line at the back of the neck, can be padstitched as well. This design is a little unusual because the lapels are included as an extension of the collar. I had to do a bit of guesswork and try to adapt the instructions from my tailoring books as best I could, since this collar differs so much from all the examples I could find.

Before padstitching the entire collar, I went ahead and attached it to the coat. This is probably a bit unconventional, but I did it because I wanted to tape the roll line before padstitching the lapels, and the roll line extends from the collar into the front jacket piece. Some directions that I've seen show padstitching before taping, but since I wanted to ease the lapel to the length of tape, I thought taping the roll line first might be a better route for me (the second photo shows where the roll line is taped, from the shoulder seam to the break point).

The rows of padstitching run parallel to the roll line. In each corner of the lapels, shorter stitches are taken while the point is rolled tightly, so that the finished lapels will curl toward the jacket body.

After the padstitching was complete, I trimmed away the seam allowances and taped the edges to prevent them from stretching out of shape. I wasn't able to get the recommended plain-weave tape for this project but used twill tape instead. I used a fell stitch to secure it in place and found that it worked better than catch-stitching on the twill weave.  

The white towel under the lapel on the right has been
 dampened to help set the shape as the roll line is steamed.

Having the collar on the jacket body made it a little awkward to steam the lapels, but Erika of Swingin' It In Vintage wrote a post about tailoring a cut-on shawl collar that I found very helpful. My collar is seamed to the jacket rather than being cut-on, but I followed the same idea of using towels to protect the body of the jacket from excess steam, while steaming one lapel at a time (thank you so much for sharing this, Erika!). 

Now it needs the upper collar and the lower coat portion to be attached!

Herringbone Coat: Interfacing the Upper Coat

After completing the bound buttonholes, the next step is to assemble the bodice panels and start interfacing the main pieces of the coat. Here's a photo of the bodice front:

For the most part, I've been using the instructions from Tailoring: The Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket , along with the tailoring section from the Reader's Digest (RD) sewing guide, to make patterns for and apply the hair canvas interfacing. To draft the bust dart that comes out from the armhole, however, I used the information from Marji's posts on the The Great Coat Sew Along, which can be found here and here (there is just a wealth of helpful information on this site! Thank you, Marji, for sharing this technique!).

The picture above shows the "shield" piece that supports the area between the shoulder and bust to help prevent it from drooping toward the body. After completing the bust dart and basting the shield in place, I aligned the markings on the canvas with the details of the bodice front and tailor-basted it in place.

 I don't have any pictures of the bodice back right now, but also I followed the instructions in the Tailoring book for interfacing the back with a muslin stay and taping the shoulder seams when attaching it to the bodice front.

Before adding the collar, I trimmed away the seam allowance of the interfacing at the neck edge and catchstitched the canvas in place. The interfacing seam allowances on the neck edges of both jacket and collar are not trimmed away in the Tailoring book, but in the RD sewing book they are. I needed to reduce the bulk somewhere to avoid having two layers of hair canvas going into this seam, so I decided to trim it on the bodice, but include it on the collar.

Now for padstitching the collar! It's visible in the picture where it's starting to "roll" now that I've filled in the stand.  

Herringbone Coat: Bound Buttonholes

Before assembling the main panels of the coat bodice, I made bound buttonholes on the center front piece of the coat. I put this step first because applying this type of buttonhole after the hair canvas is in place can create extra bulk. Plus, it's even easier to do this while working with single panel, rather than a whole bodice front. 

After making a few samples on my scrap material, I reinforced the center front buttonhole area with a lightweight, fusible interfacing. To form the buttonholes, I followed the steps for the "one-piece folded method" in the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing. I've used this same technique for most of my previous jacket projects and have found that it works quite well. Now that the buttonholes are complete, they'll remain basted closed until the coat is finished, to protect them during construction.

Herringbone Coat: Preparations

Well, it's been nearly a month since my last post, and I've been inching along between Thanksgiving and other happenings, but my coat project is still underway. I took a few pictures along the way which I 'll be sharing over the next few days.

 After finally finishing the pattern details mentioned in my last post, I cut out the fashion fabric, lining material, interlining layer and interfacings.

 Since I'm interlining the coat with cotton flannel for extra warmth, I started out by backing each lining panel with its matching flannel piece. I did this by spreading the pieces flat and basting them together by hand to prevent the layers from shifting, as the lining material is very slippery.

At this point I also prepared the interfacing for the under collar. I thought I'd share a picture of this because it's such an unusual shape; not only does this design have a shawl collar, but it also features an oversized lapel. All of this is combined in one giant, bone-shaped panel. It's cut on the bias so that it will acommodate the contours of the neck and shoulders. The center back seam is lapped here to minimize bulk.

When I marked the collar/lapel roll line on the test garment, I also noted where the collar fell along the shoulder seam to help me plan the pad-stitching (the photo above shows the penciled "map" where my pad-stitches will be). The small section centered at the bottom is basically the collar stand, and everything above it falls on the opposite side of the roll line. Since the rows of stitching don't need to be spaced as closely at the "fall" of the collar (top center), I drew them a little wider in this area. In contrast, the spacing of the lines in the upper corners is much closer, as they will become the points of the lapels and will need a bit of extra stitching to help curl them toward the jacket body.  

Herringbone Coat: the Shoulder Pads

When purchasing some of the materials my coat, I found a pair of "needle punch" shoulder pads. They are made from graduated layers of soft batting, sandwiched between two layers of felt. The pads have been needle-punched from the top, to send small fibers of each layer into the layer below, helping to hold all of the layers together. They're made especially for tailoring and are very flexible, so I know they'll work much better than some of the foam pads that I've used in the past.

 The only problem with them was the thickness. They were sold unpackaged and I was told that they were 1/2" thick, which is what my pattern called for. They did look a bit thicker than 1/2," but I couldn't find any that were thinner, so I went ahead and purchased them. When I checked the measurement at home, they were at least 3/4"! As nice as they were, using a thicker pad can change the fit of the jacket, and for a while I wasn't sure if I would use them. After a bit of experimenting, however, I found that these pads can be altered.

Here's a top view of the unaltered pad. The felt layer is perforated where it's been punched.

Side view of the batting. Too thick!

To alter it, I carefully pried the top layer of felt loose from the pad and separated a layer of batting, bringing it to the desired thickness.

            I slowly pulled out the separated section, leaving the bottom layer 1/2" thick.

To finish the pad, I pressed the top layer of felt against the filling and held it in a curved position while using diagonal basting stitches secure the layers together.

Now the pads are ready to be used for my coat! I'm still in the process of making some extra pattern pieces for the interfacings, but I will try to post soon and share some of the details about the muslin.

Herringbone Coat Project

I know it's been a long time since I've last updated. . . a very long time! My life over these past months has gotten rather busy, so I haven't been very prolific at blogging, to say the least! However, I have still managed to do bits of sewing here and there, and I would still love to share it on my blog. Over the coarse of this year, my projects have branched out to custom sewing jobs and alterations for others, and I've even started teaching sewing classes over this summer. I've still been making a few pieces for myself, too, including a summer dress from Simplicity 2180 (I need to take some pictures!).

 Now that winter is fast approaching, I'm working on making a wool coat. The one I currently wear has been needing a replacement for some time, so I've decided that this is the year to try my hand at making a new one! I've made jackets before, but this is my first actual coat. I would like to write a little series of blog posts through the making of this project, as sharing it here might just help motivate me to finish it more quickly, and perhaps there might be others out there who are interested in coat making who could follow along ;)

 For my pattern, I've chosen Butterick's new Butterick 5658 and will be making view B, pictured below.

So far my plans are to follow the design of the coat fairly close to the pattern, although I've opted to borrow a two-piece sleeve (and corresponding armhole) from a simplicity coat pattern that I have. Two-piece sleeves often have shaping that allows a freer range of motion than one-piece sleeves. Besides this, I'll be changing the construction a bit, to include more tailored details, as well.

 I already have nearly all the materials I need to get started. This past September my sister and I went to American Sewing Expo in Novi, Michigan, where I found a lightweight wool herringbone in the vending area. Most of the other materials came from a specialty fabric store.

This picture shows the wool, along with matching buttons, cotton twill tape for stabilizing, hair canvas for interfacing, and Bemberg rayon for lining. The buttons and lining didn't react to well to the camera flash, but they are both dark brown and do match the wool ;) Hopefully I can get better pictures of these materials as my posts progress. I'm also going to add a cotton flannel interlining to the inside to provide a little extra warmth.

 Up to this point, I've fitted a muslin and marked the collar/lapel roll line on the pattern tissue. The next step is to prepare all the materials and create a few extra pattern pieces for the interfacing, facing, and lining. In the next post, I'll show a few pictures the shoulder pads I'll be using.

Details of the Tailored Jacket

I Thought I'd take the time to explain the project that I showed in the previous post. I've added a few more pictures to show the inside of the jacket and the lining.

First off, I must say that I am no where near being an experienced tailor; this is the first jacket that I have ever tailored. When I started toying with the idea of learning to tailor a jacket, one book in particular, The Zapp Method of Couture Sewing, grabbed my interest. The author, Anna Zapp, shows how to tailor a jacket using a method called "fuse tailoring," which basically involves using a fusible hair canvas to shape the garment and molding it while the interfacing is being fused. This is the method I had originally thought of using, but after a while I became busy and I didn't have time to start such a large project, and the idea was put "on the back burner," so to speak. Later on when I was not as busy, however, I started to think about tailoring again, only this time I wanted to learn custom tailoring, in which the traditional hand methods are used. The more home seamstresses that I read about online who talked about using traditional methods, the more I wanted to try it. I knew that many of them were advanced by their years of experience, but I figured that if I wanted to be able to do it well someday, I would have to start somewhere, so I decided to give it a try.

Next, I set out in search of reliable instructions on the subject. I rummaged through various library books, and, after looking through a few of them, I selected the Reader's Digest's The New Complete Guide to Sewing and Claire B. Shaeffer's Couture Sewing Techniques. I liked The New Complete Guide To Sewing for it's thorough, detailed, and comprehensive directions, and I had grown very fond Couture Sewing Techniques after borrowing it a few times, and figured that with Claire's extensive knowledge of couture methods, it wouldn't hurt to use it as a supplement to the first book that I mentioned. For the actual construction of the jacket, I followed the Reader's Digest (RD) book pretty closely, but I used Claire's advice while attaching the bridle*, pad stitching the lapels, and taping the front seamline.

Finally, here are a few additional snapshots:









In these photos, you can see a close-up photo of the bound buttonholes at the center front. Unfortunately, the pictures don't really show the pleat in the center back seam of the lining or in the lining hem :(
Note: These photographs were taken with a flash, so the lining appears to be somewhat illuminated.

Materials used: Fashion fabric - Bouclé (50% Wool, 50% Acrylic), Lining - Plum colored lining fabric (100% Polyseter), Hair canvas - medium weight (60% Wool, 40% Goat hair), Bridle - I actually didn't use bridle. I used 1/4" white twill tape as a substitute (100% Cotton), Sleeve heading - Polyester fleece.

The jacket isn't entirely perfect; I encountered a few difficulties, such as areas that seemed to pucker and imperfections in a few places (the notch of the collar and lapels, for instance), but I suppose that could very well be expected of my first jacket.

One tip that I would offer to other beginning tailors (based on the experience error) is to choose a fabric that is easy to work with yet still compatible for tailoring when starting your first project. A wool gabardine** or twill would probably be among the better choices. When I chose to use bouclé for my jacket, I did not realize how difficult it would be to handle. It was not impossible, but the fact that it was spongy, bulky, and frayed badly made it difficult to stitch and press. Areas of construction such as attaching the collar to the jacket and facing the lapels require precise stitching, and stitches have a way of hiding in bouclé that makes them hard to see or remove. My fabric also required special pressing techniques which caused me to spend more time worrying about protecting my fabric from the iron than actually molding the jacket and learning how to shape it.

This is all I can think to say on the subject at the moment, but if you have any additional questions as to how I made this jacket, post a comment and let me know!


*If you're not familiar with the term "bridle" as I mentioned it above, bridle is a particular sort of narrow cotton tape that is used in tailoring to prevent unwanted stretching in areas such as the roll line of the lapels.

**ETA: When I originally wrote this post, I mentioned gabardine as being easier to press than bouclé. I was mistaken, however, because gabardine can be difficult to handle, as well. Sorry for the confusion! I guess I'm always learning!

Pressing Boucle Fabric

Last night I was able to start officially start my tailoring project (that is, if cutting out the fabric doesn't count), and the first step was to assemble the front and back pieces (i.e., sew the side front panels to the center front panels, and sew the center back seam, ect.). So far, so good. I still need to sew the side back pieces to the main panel of the back.

Claire Shaeffer warns in her fabric books that bouclé can easily be damaged by improper pressing, so I test pressed the fabric, and found that the following method seems to be the most suitable for my material:

1) Cover a dressmaker's/tailor's ham with a thick terry towel (this will help to retain the texture of the fabric and keep it from becoming matted flat).

2) Place the item that is to be pressed over the towel.

3) Cover the bouclé with a self-fabric press cloth, and press the fabric as needed. If you're pressing open a seam, press the seam flat as it was when it was sewn, then finger-press the seam open. (Hint: Because my fabric's fibers are 50% acrylic, I used an extra press cloth of cotton muslin over the self-fabric press cloth to prevent the fabric from being scorched. This was very handy while I was finger pressing, because I could rotate the muslin immediately after I removed the iron from the material's surface, so that I would not have to touch hot fabric).

4) Immediately after pressing a section of the fabric (and without removing the fabric from the pressing surface), remove the press cloth(es) and hover the iron close to the material's surface and steam it generously (this will help restore the texture of the fabric). Do not move the fabric until it is cool and dry.

These instructions are basically what I learned from Claire Shaeffer's fabric books. If you'd like to try this, please do remember that my fabric is 50% Wool and 50% Acrylic, and these pressing directions are suited to my fabric, so I'd recommend test-pressing your fabric before trying this method on an actual project :)

This is one of the reasons that I only completed several seams last night -- I spent more time in front of the ironing board than I spent at the sewing machine!

-Rebekah

Playing Tailor :)

I'm finally about to start my first tailoring job! I'm so exited that I can barely wait -- the only thing holding me back are the rest of the supplies that I have to buy. I've purchased a two yard length of bouclé fabric from Fashion Fabrics Club -- here's a picture:



You can find specific information on the fabric here. I'm using McCall's 5058 for the pattern, but I'm following the basic tailoring instructions from the Reader's Digest New Complete Guide to Sewing, and following also the the advice on tailoring written by Claire B. Shaeffer in her book, Couture Sewing Techniques. I've started practicing making bound buttonholes, which I've never done before. It's pretty simple once you "get the hang of it," though doing bound buttonholes with bouclé fabric, as I've discovered, can be a challenge! The fabric is rather thick, does not readily hold a crease, and frays excessively, so I'm making the sort of bound buttonhole with cording inserted in the welts. After practicing on several pieces of scrap fabric I've finally become used to the way it's supposed work, and I would post a picture of one of my little test buttonholes, but the camera is currently unavailable :( Oh, well. I'll keep posting!