Trench coat project part 6: The finished trench coat
… so here is the latter half of today’s posting, go here, if you missed the first part and here, if you want to start the series from the beginning. Hooray! My trench coat is finally finished! This has been a long journey that I started already in April, when I wrote about my coat plans. At that point I hadn’t found my pattern, yet and hadn’t met my wonderful, wonderful sewing teacher Michelle, who helped me tremendously along the way. Then I managed to find the McCall’s 5525 coat sewing pattern on Ebay and started drafting a coat. I used the pattern only as a starting point since I…
Trench coat project part 5
The previous parts in my trench coat series can be found: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 And… I know I promised to show the coat the next time I posted. However, this post became too long and I split it in two parts. No worries, though, I will post them both at the same time and you can read them both! Hemming the coat I used the wonderful book of Roberta Carr, Couture – the art of fine sewing, to instruct me on how to make a good hem. To be honest, this is the most work I’ve ever done with hemming. At first bias strips about 6…
The trench coat project part 4: Gorgeous details and lining
The previous posts about this trench coat project: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Belt carriers, sleeve bands and the belt I had my belt and sleeve band buckles ready, so I adjusted the belt (I include now the sleeve bands with the word ‘belts’) widths to suit the buckles. I added some extra length to the sleeve bands since the original ones were meant to be buttoned up. With the belt, I decided to use the whole width of my gabardine and cut the belt on fold. I also made the belt end pointed. The belts and the sleeve bands needed to be interfaced. I interfaced the belts using…
Trench coat project part 3: The Coat is taking shape
Finally the trench coat is taking shape! The previous posts in the series: Part 1 Part 2 top-stitching Most of the seams in my trench coat have top stitching. My Bernina has previously had trouble with top stitching thread, so I used two treads that I treaded through the machine like a single thread, except having two different spools. I still noticed that I needed a sharp Microtex needle and a well oiled machine to get a neat result. Pockets I mentioned the pockets last time but I never showed how they looked from the right side. I ditched the idea of the original pockets since they were too small…
Trench coat project part 2: Off-graining and interfacing
The first part of the trench coat project can be found here. The next part of the trench coat project was to off-grain the coat fronts, cut the main parts of the coat and attach interfacings. Off-graining the coat fronts Some people were asking for me to explain the off-graining process, so here is a description of what I did. I must warn you that I am not a professional and I only write this down as I have understood it. I recommend using this description as an inspiration only and finding a book written by a professional to learn it properly. One excellent book for this is Couture the Art…
