A wool coat for winter, part 5: Collar, sleeves and the lining

I can’t believe how long it took for me to come back to this V8346 coat project! However, now I have made lots of progress. There has been a lot of hand-sewing, drafting, pressing and fitting and slowly my coat is taking shape.

The shawl collar

The V8346 pattern with adjustments

The collar pattern pieces for the V8346 coat felt huge. I already have a coat with a shawl collar, so I compared the pattern to the collar on my old coat and it was about and inch bigger. At the same time the pattern piece was a bit too short since I had adjusted my coat fronts. So, I drew a new collar that was narrower and slightly longer.

The undercollar was cut on bias and it had a seam at the centre back. I wanted a make a classic collar, so I used hair canvas as an interfacing. You can see, how I cut the hair canvas on bias and zigzagged the right and left sides of the collar together. Then it was time to pad stitch the collar.

The pad stitching of the collar

I have never done pad stitching before but it was a time for me to learn. First I basted the roll line. Then I used my left hand to shape the collar as I started pad stitching with my right hand using pre-waxed silk thread.

The pad stitching follows the curve of the collar. When everything was done (it took a couple of hours) I sprayed the collar with water and pinned it on my dressform to dry:

The over-collar had to be eased to the undercollar. This way the seam is hidden under the collar edge. I basted the edges properly with silk thread before pressing the collar edges carefully.

The sleeves

I think that a proper coat should have at least two-piece sleeves that drape nicely without wrinkles. The original pattern V8346 had a one-piece sleeve, so I had to draft a new pattern. The only way to do it was to buy cheap wool and make lots of toiles.

I experimented with V7975 sleeves but those didn’t work at all, since they were way too narrow. Finally, I took out the sleeve pattern I had drafted for my trench coat. I laid the V9795 sleeves on my trench coat sleeves and combined the two patterns together.

I added a bit height to the sleeve cap since I was now using wool and not gabardine. I also widened the sleeves quite a bit since I had to be able to fit in all my three layers of lining and my thicker winter sweaters. I made about three toiles before the sleeves looked better. This is how my coat sleeve patterns ended up looking:

However, before removing the toile sleeves, I made sure to baste the stitching line onto my coat so that I knew exactly where to put my sleeve. (And you can see my collar in its rightful place!)

I pinned the actual sleeves on my coat with the help of my dressform. This way the sleeve drapes nicely. It still looks that it is pointing a little too much to the back. It might be just the sleeve I had to correct a bit or it might be that the coat is sitting a bit weirdly at the dressform. My dressform has really narrow shoulders which makes sleeve fitting a bit difficult. I may have to sew an arm to it at some point…

I gathered the sleeve caps using the method my sewing guru Michele taught me. I cut a bias strip out of wool canvas and stretched it while I sewed it on the sleeve. This eases the sleeve very nicely and creates a beautiful shape.

Making the sleeves took a lot of time but the end result was worth it!

Lining the sleeves

Making a coat with two underlining layers means that I basically have to sew four coats! I already made the underlining for the main coat but now I had to underline the sleeves, too. I decided to eliminate one of the sleeve seams at the wadding that is stretchy. As you can see, there was plenty of wadding left after lining the coat!

Here are all the three layers of lining and underlining sewn together and ready to be attached to the main coat lining.

The coat lining

I was happy to use the large cutting table at Ompelino sewing cafe to cut the huge and slippery lining fabric that I was unable to fold (due to the shape of the pattern pieces).

I was quite worried about my facing. By mistake, I had cut my facings off-grain and then was told that the facings should be cut on-grain. So, what to do? I didn’t have enough fabric to cut new pair of facings.

Then, as I sat staring at my facing pieces, I noticed that there was a small difference between the facing pieces. Only one seemed to have been cut off-grain! I have no idea how that happened. Perhaps I had to cut them in two stages and forgot the off-graining with the second piece. I got a surge of energy and spread out all my leftover wool pieces. And there was one piece that was just large enough to re-cut the off-grained piece! Hooray!

I made a few metres of golden satin piping to put between the lining and the facings. I was even smart enough to pre-shrink the cotton cord that I used for the piping!

I sewed the piping on on several goes. First I basted it on at the edge and then closer to the piping. Finally I took my appliqué foot and stitched even closer than what I could do with a zipper foot.

After stitching the facings on I trimmed the facing part off my underlining layers. I also removed a bit of wadding and the cotton from underarm to reduce bulk:

Finally I was ready to join the lining pieces together! This is how the final lining looks like turned inside out. Isn’t it pretty!

And here’s the back:

Of course, the pattern goes to the inside. Here is the lining turned the right way around:

I still have to trim some seam allowances and join the lining to the wadding from a few places to make my coat drape nicely. Then I only need to make a buttonhole and I can attach the lining to the coat.

Now I really need to finish this coat, before the February cold arrives in Finland. Luckily the hardest steps are now behind me. I really hope that the final coat will be worth all the effort!

Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this mammoth post! Subscribe to easily follow my blog with a notification sent directly into your email every time I post something new! Happy sewing!

Katja