Well, I hope you had a nice week! I’m back with another coat update. Last week I wrote about padstitching the undercollar. This post highlights the progress I’ve made over the past week, which was all about the front pieces/lapels. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Last Friday a snowstorm hit the northeast. This gave me the perfect opportunity to settle in and practice creating bound buttonholes, which I haven’t done in 3 years (and that was just to create a sample in a class). It was surprisingly fun! I must say, I was worried about this step after seeing Gertie’s tutorial just because there were so many steps. I ended up following the method used in Tailoring instead; I found it much easier to follow and I highly recommend it.

Here is one of them! I put the button there to help guide you to the buttonhole just above it since it’s hard to see in this fabric. You can just see the bias placement of the “lips” (with the basting stitches in it kind of reminds me of Billy the zombie from the movie Hocus Pocus – haha random). I had white basting stitches in to mark the center and width of the buttonhole openings, but obviously I removed them before taking this shot.

I’m excited about the anchor buttons. I ordered them off Etsy (there are tons of these out there) after seeing them on my grandfather’s World War II U.S. Navy pea coat, which was my initial inspiration for this project. Not only that, but when I look at these buttons they will also remind me of my truly wonderful grandpa, and that sure is something! I’d like to get around to showing you his coat one day. Apparently I’ve been promising this for 2 years. Whoops. Continue reading →

I’ve made progress with my tailored wool coat! It’s very exciting. Even though I haven’t been good about updating the blog, I have been reading up on tailoring techniques in the Tailoring book my sister gave me one Christmas AND making some progress on the coat itself. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

The under collar, stitched down the middle and ready for some hair canvas! Sorry for the slightly blurred shot; I was so excited that I finally started that I had to share with a friend who has been on the receiving end of all my coat updates lately.

The fabric – a lovely, lovely Italian herringbone wool I picked up during a Gorgeous Fabrics sale in winter 2011 – is impossible to mark so I’ve gone the “speed tailor’s tacks” route, as suggested in Tailoring. This basically means using multi-strand embroidery floss, which has the benefits of grabbing the fabric in a single stitch without falling out easily. You can also use different colors to represent different markings. I like that idea!  Continue reading →