In my state of uneasy about the this I did decide to make some construction changes because I didn’t like the pattern instructions. The instructions told me to hand sew the sleeve lining into the armhole. Thanks, but I will pass on that tediousness. There is a much easier way to do that and still get a similar result. I machine stitched the sleeve in and tacked the seam allowances of the shell and the lining together at the top and the underarm. The red stitching line on the herringbone in the picture above is my underarm tack. Doing this still secures the lining to the shell to prevent bagging in the sleeve. I will sew all my sleeve linings in this way because it is for sure quicker that hand sewing it in.
I then pulled the waist seams back out and used this same tacking technique as I did on the sleeves. I tacked it all along the box pleat in the center back. Again, I did this in the red thread so it would be easier to see in photos. This will help to prevent the back from bagging as well.
From there it was a breeze. I had 3 buttonholes and buttons on the front of the bodice and two buttons on the tab at the center back. Give it a final good pressing and boom…
NEW COAT!!
I will say I am much happier with how this turned out than I was while sewing it. It is not as loose as I thought it would be, which is good.
I love my lining. You cannot see it well here, but it has a shimmer to it.
A few final thoughts on this coat. At this time I have no plans to make another version of this. While it turned out well, I have so many other coat patterns I want to make that this one is probably not going to make and appearance again. This coat was a great use of stash fabrics though. Everything, other than the buttons, came from my stash. I used 2 1/2 yards of herringbone, 3 yards of muslin for the underlining and 3 yards of red shimmer cotton for the lining. That’s 8 1/2 yards out of my stash! WOOT!
Up next is the Albion for Eric! I got the underling/muslin cut out last night and am planning on basting it together tonight.
