Red coat part 6: The all important finishing off.

The waist of the lining is now attached to the waist of the coat. I insert vertical pins and work from the outsides, ie centre front into the centre back allowing extra fabric so the lining is not tight in the coat. 

skirt lining being inserted at waist

 

Then I insert the sleeve heads into the top of the sleeve, stitching loosely and by hand the fold of the sleeve heads into to the inside (sleeve side ) of the armhole, in a  ratio of 3.5 to front and 5 to back of the sleeve seam, as recommended by Claire Shaeffer. The longest depth goes next to the fabric of the sleeve. 

Apologies I did not take a picture of this. 

Once these are in the lining of the sleeve is turned over into the bodice and again loosely hand stitched to the armhole seam, or in the area of this. I do not put the stitches through the armhole seam stitches. 

Stitching the lining round the armhole 

Once the  lining is attached at the waist I like to wait a day or so with the coat on the body duplicate to let everything hang! 

 The next job is to stitch labels in, to be as neat as possible

labels in coat 

Coat hem or buttons next? I mark where the buttons are to go and pin the loops there when trying the coat on for length. 

I am in the fortunate position, as I have used the pattern before of knowing where the hem line should be, making this distance the same as the previous coat! This is a good starting point snd I tack round with a double length of contrasting thread. 

My husband then checks this by sight and  with a ruler measuring  up from the floor. The hem is then pinned up and once we have agreed the length all round, I can finish the hem. I measure from the hem, to the top of the hem of the coat and then overlock this edge. Super care needed due to the blade in use on the overlocker! Then I blind hand stitch the hem in place, using a very loose thread and hardly marking the outer side. 

This shows part of adjusting the bulk  at the front bottom edges of the coat

Next I mark the line, with double thread tacking , where the lining will be attached, in this case 2 cm up from the fold. 

Sums needed and measuring to allow the lining to be long enough to ‘bag over’ this line but not show below the coat. The lining is then overcast along the edge. 

Lots of pressing needed here, using the ‘wet  hankie and clapper’ on the coat and also making a sharp fold for the lining. 

This is where the small fold is used at the edge of the lining and the lining is hand stitched to the 2 cm line. 

Bottom of the coat showing slight excess of lining to allow good movement in wear, the slight fold over at the bottom also hides the stitching line.

Buttons are attached and I always add stabilising small buttons to the back

Back of buttons

All done! 

Coat showing the lining 

I hope these posts have encouraged you to have a go at making a coat, it is well worth it for many reasons, not least because you will have a coat of quality material, it will fit you and you will not meet anyone wearing the same. 

Allow plenty of time and split up the stages. Do contact me if you need clarification of any of the stages. 

Red coat part 5: The skirt of the coat

Making the outer coat skirt

This is one of the most straightforward parts in the construction. The centre seam of the coat skirt and also the side seams can be stitched. I aim to stitch from the bottom upwards. The seams need pressing open from the private and then on the public side. The centre back and  one of the side seams of the lining can be stitched. They also need pressing open. The lining is then put to one side. 

The next stage is to stitch the bodice to the skirt. Allow plenty of time and I suggest matching the  seams by  tacking along the seam lines of the skirt and bodice where 

the seams meet. 

The seams meeting well 

 

To help reduce the bulk after attaching the skirt to the bodice, I stitch this seam in a lot of stages. ie I stitch towards the vertical seam and makes sure I do not stitch on the vertical seam seam allowance. I do this for each of the vertical seams on the bodice and the skirt. This was very successful and I was able then to trim the seam allowance for a greater distance than just down to the bodice/ skirt seam . When the seams meet is therefore much reduced in bulk. Try to  check very carefully that no lining has got caught up! 

The waist seam is then graded in trimming and it is pressed upwards towards the bodice and  as much seam allowance cut off the vertical seams as possible. 

Once this is completed the other two loops need attaching, again lots of measuring and checking 

Once the skirt was attached to the bodice I stitched the inner Harris Tweed facings to the fronts of the skirt, checking carefully that the distance from the top of the front to the seam was identical in each front. This modification to the pattern worked well, after grading the same and understitching the long facing there was much less bulk where the bodice and skirt joined at the centre front. 

The skirt lining. 

Finishing this is far more complicated than attaching the skirt of the outer coat. I also made it more complicated as I used Harris Tweed as facing on the reverse of the centre fronts AND attached this to the top facing. 

The first challenge was positioning the lining in the correct place horizontally at the waist, while joining each front lining to the Harris Tweed vertically! I took this slowly and kept putting the coat on the body duplicate to check the hang of the outer coat and lining was good. I also stopped short at the bottom as the lining will be shorter than the coat and I will allow a small fold to allow the lining to cover the bottom stitching. 

Once these seams were done and pressed I now had a front lining piece attached to 2 back lining  pieces and the other front lining piece attached to the coat. Ie one of the side lining seams needed joining. To do this well I had to feed the lining around the coat, stitch the seam trim and press etc, then pull the coat through the space where the waist of the lining is as yet not attached to the waist of the coat. 

This was not full ‘bagging out’ as one would expect to do in a jacket. I do like to hand stitch the waist lining to the seam at the waist and also hand stitch the hem/ lining junction rather than machine this. 

Only finishing touches left now!