It seemed like a good idea at the time, or, an assortment of idiosyncratic construction decisions

Catchstitched interlining

I guess I really am a sucker for hand-sewing. If only because I catch much less flack from the family if I’m hand-sewing in the living-room with the rest of them all evening, instead of lurking in the kitchen with my sewing machine.

Warning: what follows is not a description of how one SHOULD make a coat. I am not particularly convinced that all (any) of the construction details I am about to report actually improve the resulting coat in any way, and several of them may have serious unforeseen drawbacks. I accept this. 😉

Friday I got the rest of the coat—lining and interlining—cut out. Hooray! I could not find any more of my space suit interlining at the fabric store, so I had to settle for some (much cheaper) non-foil-backed stuff. I had just enough left from making my coat to cut the two back pieces from the foil-backed stuff, which I figure should be fine since the fronts are double-breasted anyway.

I trimmed the seam-allowances from the interlining. Then, for reasons I am no longer totally clear on, I decided

Underlining

that rather than floating free between shell and lining, it should be sandwiched between shell and interlining. I promptly proceeded to catchstitch the back pieces in place, so they wouldn’t shift despite not being caught in the seams.

Then I said “bugger that,” and skipped the catch-stitching step for the front and side-front pieces. My occasional inability to keep the interlining out of the seams should hold them in place, not like they have anywhere to go.

This fabric is a dream to sew with. It’s squishy, easy to ease, and you can catch stitches on the underside beautifully without worry of them showing on the right side of the fabric. Mmm. I also love my flannel underlining.

1cm seam-allowances may be awesome on jeans, but they’re tricky on a coat. Allowing for turn of cloth, once you go to press the seam open, there’s very little allowance at all. I proceeded to stitch all the seam-allowances open after pressing (hence the marathon of hand-stitching and why my fingers are still sore.)

BUT, LOOK!!!

Tyo refused to brush her hair for the photos, hence her headless state. Also she was making faces.

OMG, is that a coat?

She has POCKETS!

Well, almost.

Yay, smooth back!

For interest’s sake, I re-took Tyo’s measurements (rather than relying on my last set from oh, back in the summer) and compared them to the m-sewing sizing charts. The results may highlight some of the fitting issues we had.

Hips: 81 cm. Her hips are a size 12.

Waist: 58. Her waist is a size 8.

Bust: 63 cm. Her chest is, ah, a size 6.

The coat I made is about a size 11, for measurements bust: 73cm, waist: 63cm, hip: 79cm.  I still think the coat is cut a bit snug for my liking (I added significantly more than 2cm to the ease in the hips), but the disproportion between shoulders and hips is all Tyo.  If Sewaholic Patterns ever puts out a children’s line, Tyo can be their first customer.

Next: assemble sleeves, sew lining, decide whether to add another layer of interlining (this time where the interlining *actually* belongs) as the non-foil stuff is kinda thin, and try to avoid doing any more hand-stitching until at least tonight.

PS. This post would’ve been up Saturday morning, but my camera cable evaporated sometime Friday evening. Despite a thorough house-clean Saturday (my Dad was in town and came to dinner), it has not resurfaced. However, fortunately for me, the card reader decided to read the camera memory stick today—Sony uses an odd format and 90% of the time the computer doesn’t recognize it… but once in a while it does. So, you get a post! Yay for random computer cooperation!