The Coat - Collar

[jessamygriffith]

A day of sewing at this on and off, working for exactitude, and generally things went well. I re-drafted the collar, hand-sewed the interlining to stiffen the undercollar (and retacked some parts of the interlining of the front of the coat which was bubbling argh).

Hand sewing is not bad when one is trying to ctach up on Supernatural. I just watched Season 1, and started Season Two.


Tell what obsession is, shall I? Or rather, anal retentiveness. I noticed yesterday that I had sewned the one patch pocket and flap so that the houndstooth pattern was going the opposite dierction of the coat - see above pic. This... wore at me, and so I ripped it off today (carefully) and made up a new pocket and flap.

The second photo is the inside of the coat showing the interlining and the welt pocket pouch.

The collar I had cut was too tall in the back and angled badly. So - new mock-up.


Above - the udercollar stiffening and the upper collar with iron-on interfacing. The mohair/wool interlining is interesting stuff. Smells odd wet, and clings to the wool. Of course... hand sewing.

Time passed. I sewed the collar on, tried it. The back was still too tall. I took 1 cm away, ironed the seams, turned it and pressed, hammering the edge with my clapper. Love this technique, btw, it's one I learned for the Coat.
The - top stitching and here we are. One coat with stand-up collar.



The lapels are still a touch wide, but fuck it, fuck it I say.

**EDIT - for people who wondered about the collar and lapel. The upper collar had fusible interfacing melted as hard as I could make it go to the wool, and it overlaps in the middle to make that triangle so that there would be extra strength to keep the collar up when I wanted to pop it up.
The under collar has horse hair interfacing pad-stitched to it.
The lapels likewise, and the line on the roll line of the lapel is stay tape, which is meant to prevent the fabric stretching out and stop the lapel folding wonky, because after all it is on the bias of the fabric. Bias = stretching = bad lapel folds later on that don't stay where you want them.  The stay tape, which is just a piece of twill tape I used, is meant to, well, make the fabric STAY where it's supposed to.
Ideally, stay tape should NOT be the bias tape you use for hems or blanket edges or placemats, it should be a straight weave light weight fabric that irons or steams easily, and doesn't add bulk. Really, I should have just cut my stay tape out of plain cotton, but I had this twill tape around and figured, 'Hey. I'm not Belstaff." Twill tape works fine, it's just a tad thick.

Pictures taken from my book,  'Tailoring - the classic guide to sewing the perfect jacket'
Above, iron-on interfacing, with shoulder reinforcement and stap tape on the edges, and the stap tape on the roll line.

Jacket with classic pad-stitched horse-hair interfacing, shoulder reinforcement and the lapel stay tape pinned in place.

Here you see the stay tape fell-stitched to the interfacing.

Comments

[alltoseek.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. So very nice!

[jessamygriffin.livejournal.com]

Miss Obsessive is going to tear the lapels apart again and narrow the just 1 cm. Why?

I am a fucking idiot who wants perfection.

[pargoletta.livejournal.com]

I begin to see why that coat costs £1500 retail!

You're doing an amazing job so far.

[jessamygriffin.livejournal.com]

Granted, it's taking me forever because... it's me, and I am learning stuff as I go along and I'm not professionally trained. But yeah...

The Coat is fairly simple in its design. It's elegant, has clean lines. One of the things making it pricey is the materials, and then the time you spend on the bones beneath to make it look right. Very underappreciated, the underpinnings, but it's what makes the coat look so good.