I have been diligently working on my coat and have been keeping track of my time spent. I have cut out the fabric and hair canvas, have used tailors basting to attach the hair canvas to the fabric, and am now catch stitching the edges of the hair canvas. I have spent almost exactly 10 hours so far and I haven't turned my sewing machine on yet! I do feel like I have made progress and that the actual sewing will go quickly once I start.
One thing I do need to bring up are Simplicity's Project Runway patterns and the yardages listed on the pattern envelope. I do not understand their logic.
First of all, all coats and jackets have sleeves. So why on earth do they separate the sleeve yardage from the body of the coat/jacket? It's not as if there are short and long sleeve versions of the sleeves, only pleated or plain. For the plain sleeves they suggest 7/8 of a yard for 45" or 60" wide fabric. For the pleated sleeves, it's 1 yard. Really? For pleats at the sleeve cap, you need 4.5" (1/8 yard) more length of fabric? I think not. Why not just give the yardages of coat vs jacket (with sleeves) and separate out the back yoke and tabs/epaulets since those are optional. Sleeves are not.
Next up is the yardages themselves. I cut out a 16 for the bodice grading to an 18 at the waist and a 20 at the hip. According to the envelope, regardless of size 16, 18, or 20, I should need 1-3/4 yard for the body of the jacket, and 7/8 yard for the plain sleeve. If you want the rounded collar that's an additional 3/8 yard. That is 3 yards. I was rather generous when I ordered my fabric, and ordered 3.5 yards. I cut everything out of about 2 1/4 yards with plenty of space between the pattern pieces.
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making a coat is difficult, I have done 3 BUT sitll need to fix several things, even if I have done muslism, I don't know why, but the real one NEVER looks like the muslim after the alterations I do :( , I want to do another one this winter BUT I need to do it correctly, I want to feel happy with the result. Please show us pictures of the fabric with the hair canvas.
ReplyDeleteI have made one coat from a Project Runway pattern and will never do it again! I also found the fabric requirements way off (+ confusing) and the written instructions were all over the place. In theory, the patterns are a good idea to encourage mixing and matching different design elements...but isn't that what we all do with normal patterns anyway? It isn't like we all stick completely to View A/B/C etc.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm so impressed with all the work you're putting into this coat - can't wait to see the final project! I wish I had as much patience as you!