Category: All (-ish)

Coat Research

Part of my mission at Fabric Depot was to research coat options.  I need a new coat and I have thoughts of sewing one.  Here are my criteria:  at least thigh length, has a hood, hourglass-shaped (or some such shaping around the waist), easy to sew, can do autumn and winter.  It seems that this is a difficult combo to come by.  Let’s rank the contenders and see how things come out.

Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No
Easy: No information
Autumn/Winter: Yes
I’m looking at the upper right corner version.
 

Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: Not really
Easy: No information
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: Yes
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: No information
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: no information
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: Yes
Easy: No info, but one commenter rates it difficult, but great for advanced sewers.
Autumn/Winter: No
(I love this one the best, but I can tell it isn’t going to make the cut)
 
Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: Sort of?
Easy: I’m guessing not as it is Burda Style
Autumn/Winter: No.
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: Yes
Easy: Yes
Autumn/Winter: Yes, if I made it out of a light fabric.
(This has the advantage of being a Pattern by Gertie.  I’m a fan of Gertie.)
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: Yes
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No
Easy: Yes
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: Can’t tell
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: No
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No
Easy: Yes
Autumn/Winter: No
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No, wait, yes!
Hourglass: Yes
Easy: Can’t tell
Autumn/Winter: No, more of a winter.
 
 
 
Length: Yes (a bit long)
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No
Easy: Perhaps?
Autumn/Winter: More winter.
This also looks exactly like a coat I had my senior year of high school.  I haven’t decided if this is a plus or minus.
 
 
Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No, but fun princess seams in contrast color
Easy: Perhaps
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
 
 Length: Yes, though long
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: Probably not.
Autumn/Winter: More winter.
 
Length: No
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: No
Autumn/Winter: No
I only include this because Fabric Depot had a sample garment on display last winter.  It is a fabulously weird coat–it kind of has an insect vibe going on.  It’s also rated “advanced” in Vogue which means “super professionals only” in layman’s terms.  I loved the strange arm/cloak aspect of it.
 
 
 
Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No
Easy: No
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
 
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: Sort of.
Easy: Yes
Autumn/Winter: Yes
I’m including this one because it is another “unique” coat from Vogue.  Its lack of closures would not hold up to the Portland rains.
 
 
Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: Yes
Easy: Maybe?
Autumn/Winter: Yes
 
Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No
Easy: Probably not.
Autumn/Winter: Yes
This is a regional pattern company and I think this would be a fun coat to make in a fun fabric.  Silver Falls State Park is near Salem.
 
Length: Yes
Hood: Yes
Hourglass: No
Easy: Eh.
Autumn/Winter: Possibly, depending on fabric.
I am including this because I think there could be a belt added here that might make this more palatable.
 
 
Length: A little long.
Hood: No
Hourglass: No
Easy: Probably not.
Autumn/Winter: Yes
It’s so cute!  I will never make this, though.
 

Length: Yes
Hood: No
Hourglass: Yes
Easy: Nope
Autumn/Winter: Not really.

So let’s sum up.

24 total coats.
10 with hoods.
2 with hoods that are hourglass-shaped.
1 with hood that is marked “easy”

Which means we have a winner.  And that winner is:
Simplicity 2208.

I was interested in what kind of polar fleece type selection might be available to me.  It turns out I could make this coat in many different sports team’s logos.  But Fabric Depot did have a goodly selection of material that would make this look a bit more classy than some polar fleece suggests.
As a bonus assignment, check out View B of Simplicity 2208.  Is it incredibly cool, or incredibly not cool?
What do all y’all think?

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: More sewing adventures. Final muslin, Dritz magnetic pin cushion, pressing fabric & cutting out pattern.

Here’s the new fit with the new FBA.  There is still that line of extra fabric from the bust, but I’m done fiddling.  We will just go from here.
 
New sleeve.  Seems okay too.

I splurged and bought the Dritz magnetic pin cushion.  I did not like it.  The magnet isn’t very strong and the pins fly off.  Do not buy one.
 

Pressing 10.5 yards of fabric is a very daunting task.
 
Happily, my drying racks came in handy for storing the pressed material.
 
My apron patterns needed to be enlarged.  I took care of two of the pieces on the copy machine at work.
 
But two pieces needed to be enlarged more than 400% so I went to (what I still think of as) Kinkos.  (Now known as Fed/Ex.)  A wonderful employee Heatherann helped me and look!  For $3.75 I didn’t have to tape a million sheets of paper together.  That was so worth it!
 

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: More pattern adjustment

I’m giving myself a bit more room in the sleeves.
 
And I’m doing one more full bust adjustment.

Notice that this time I angled the pattern back together at the waistline.  Now we shall see if I get more room in the bust area with less fabric in the waist area.

Fabric Depot

This is where I buy a lot of my fabric, simply because it is so tremendously large.  Fabric Depot is (for my world) very far away from me. It’s a 20-minute drive or an hour on public transportation. But boy, is it fun when I get there!
 
In the summer you can shop outside and get great deals on clearance fabric.
 
Just one section of the store!  This is what I call the “fancy” material.  Bridal fabric as well as all the tulle and also material for workout clothing.
 
The pattern department is huge.  Aside from the usual shelf with pattern books, they have all these independent patterns.
 
Here is the fancy cotton, wool etc. section.  It’s such a big store they have to have huge signs hanging from the ceiling.

I regularly read Gertie’s New Blog for Better Sewing and often hear the lament from commentators, “I have no good fabric stores near me.”  So I feel very lucky to have Fabric Depot in my (extended) back yard.

Kids and “Allow Me.”

“Allow Me” is the name of the sculpture in Pioneer Courthouse Square.  I frequently see tourists standing next to it, taking photos.  Today’s crowd was a group of  what I would guess are middle school students.
 
After I took this picture one of the kids came over and stared at me.  I attempted to engage him in conversation to find out where they were from, but he wasn’t having any of it.

Soon after, their tour guide arrived and they gave her their attention.

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: Fabric Preview and more muslin action.

Straight from the dryer.  The blue in the back is the color of the shirts/dresses. The striped material in the middle is to make bias binding for the shirts/dresses. The green seersucker (this is how I can get more seersucker in my wardrobe) and awesome print are for aprons.  Note:  It is very difficult to dry 10.5 yards of fabric.  Very, very difficult.
 
To review: Full Bust Adjustment gave more room in the bust, but then, due to lack of dart, gave too much room in the abdomen area.  I have not been able to find any solutions for this on the Internet and so…
 
…here is where I remove some from the sides to attempt to fix this problem.  It’s all I can think to do.
 
Eh.  I’m not sure that did much good.
 
Plus, now I’m wrinkly in the back.
 
I’m making the sleeve a bit bigger.
 
And here I am with sleeves. I don’t like how they flare out.
 
Back view.
 
Yep.  I think the sleeves need to be even bigger.
 

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: Muslin. Fitting the back.

So I’m writing this a few weeks after I took this picture which is a bad thing.  First off, this is going to be a “hmmm.  I think I was doing this here” sort of post.  But here goes.

I’m pretty sure this was the first go-round with the muslin.
Back. It would behoove you to take note of how loose and floppy the back is, especially in the lower back area.
 

Front. You can see where I’ve drawn in a line at my waist.  Also, please note the lines radiating from the bust point above and below the bust.  This will become important later.
 
More back?  Or perhaps a picture where I show off my massive arm?

After I took those pictures, I’m pretty sure I had Matt pin out the back according to the instructions on the Threads Torso Fitting DVD.  It seems that patterns are drafted as if we are straight up and down in the back and surprisingly, we are not, so there is usually a ton of excess fabric.  So here’s how it looks now, after pulling some of that fabric out.  Better along the top.
 
But still a bit poofy nearer the waist.  Except apparently I found that okay at the time.
 
 The cats helped by watching.
 
Here is my muslin ripped apart and set up to redo the seam.  Look at all that I took out.
 
And then, due to my massive deltoids, I just went ahead and gave me more room in the underarm area.
 
Given the wrinkles around the bust line, I finally agreed that perhaps I am not a B cup any longer.  Which means it was time for my first Full Bust Adjustment!  And here it is.
 
And here is how it looks recut and resewed.  So much more room.  It was a bit of a revelation.
 
But I think there might be too much room now? And look how much extra is in the stomach area.
 
 This is me frowning because I’m not really sure how to get rid of that excess material.