The finished coat and lobster rolls

Hard to believe, but the wedding has come and gone.  I finished the coat with plenty of time to spare.  Thanks to my daughter for helping with the photo shoot.  The location is the lovely Juniper Hill Inn in Ogunquit, Maine.   

I truly enjoyed wearing this jacket.  All the other men at the wedding were wearing dark somber suits, so I'm sure I really stuck out.  Usually that would bother me because I'm not the most self confident man.   But I felt truly happy and joyous wearing this jacket, and shouldn't the clothes that we make for ourselves do just that?   I love the color (which my camera never quite captured correctly), and I'd like to think that I added a little upbeat flair to the event.  

I've put Roberto Cabrera back on the bookshelf, and the jacket is hanging in the closet.  Like all of my sewing projects this has been deeply rewarding.  I loved working with real tailoring materials; the various types of canvas, twill tape, pocketing, sleeve heads.  Even my new tailor's chalk was a pleasure.   My work space, which is very tiny, is all cleaned up waiting for the next project.  Until then, enjoy the lobster rolls!    

Setting the sleeves

Before setting the sleeves a 3/4" strip of pocketing is pressed into a curve and then basted into the armscye to prevent stretching. 

 

I then gathered the top of the sleeve between the notches with a long machine basting stitch.  Mr Cabrera doesn't do this.  Instead he bastes the sleeve into the armscye stating "Do not be discouraged if it takes two or three attempts to baste the sleeve in so that it hangs without rippling at the cap when viewed from the outside."  Sorry, but I just don't have the time or the patience to do this over and over.  With the cap of the sleeve gathered I basted the sleeve in place with 1/4" stitches. I then "re-basted" between the stitches.  Cabrera suggests using a 1/2" seam which I agree makes things much easier.  There's just less fabric to contend with. 

 

After machine stitching the sleeves, all the layers (shoulder pad, lining, pocketing, sleeve and jacket) are basted together into the seam allowance.  The final step is to sew a sleeve head into the seam allowance.  Its job is to fill out the cap of the sleeve and to create a graceful fall of the fabric at the top of the sleeve.  

I'm really on the home stretch here.  All that remains is finishing the lining, buttonholes and buttons.  

Lining the sleeves

The patterns for the sleeve lining are easily made by tracing.  Extra fabric is added at the vent and at the sleeve head.  My tailors chalk from B Black and Sons makes this very easy to do.  Knowing how much I hate working with lining material, the quicker and easier this job can be done the better. 

 

The seams are machine stitched (Yay!), and then secured to the jacket seams with a diagonal stitch.  This will hold the lining in place while the jacket is put on and taken off.   

At the vent, the lining is slashed, folded, pressed and basted into position.  The edges are finished with a prick stitch.  This was all very satisfying work, and I love the deliciously luxurious feel of putting my arm in the sleeve.   Now it's actually time to attach the sleeves to the jacket.  

Making the sleeves

Since my last post, the better part of a day was spent sewing the lining into the jacket body.  There will be some detail shots later, but the process isn't really worth belaboring.  I'm just glad it's done.  

The next step is sewing and setting the sleeves.  At this point Mr. Cabrera has one draft sleeves that will fit the wearer to a T.  I just don't feel that I have the skills or the time to wade through all this.  Plus, I'm fitting myself, so I can't stand in front of a mirror and pin a muslin sleeve onto myself.  To err on the side of caution, however, I removed one of my muslin sleeves to check that it would fit the armscye.  It did, so I'm moving forward.  

My pattern does not have vented sleeves, so I'm adding them by taping on a 1.25" by 6.5" extension to both the upper and under sleeve patterns.  I also thought my muslin sleeves were a little long.  I prefer to have some shirt cuff showing.  So I shortened them by 3/4".  This was easily done by just sewing a tuck into the Swedish tracing paper.  I just love the stuff! 

The sleeve cuffs are reinforced with a strip of bias cut pocketing material.  It's basted into place and then secured to the seam allowances to keep it from shifting around in the finished sleeve.  The extensions are then folded, mitered and pressed into their final configuration.  The sleeve is then machine stitched to 1/4" below the vent extensions.  Cabrera warns against clipping the seam at the overlap.  The seam is just pressed open which will create a diagonal fold.  In my next post the sleeves will be lined.    

Patterns? We don't need no stinkin' patterns!

This post is all about "collar insanity".  I never dreamed the collar would be completely handsewn and created "on the fly".  Here goes.  Hold on. 

 

Only the undercollar pattern is used.  The seam allowances are trimmed off and a piece of bias cut French canvas is attached to one side.  I used a fusible from Steinlauf and Stoller which worked like a charm.  The alternative method is to pad stitch the canvas to the felt;  and although I'm getting to be a pro at pad stitching, the fusible was a faster way to go.  This bit is then basted to the neckline of the jacket.  

The next step blew me away.  The top collar pattern is tossed into the trash.  Instead the jacket with the attached felt is plopped onto a rectangle of the fashion fabric, and the top collar is "fabricated" by trimming and pressing it to conform to the felt.  The whole construction is basted in multiple directions before finally being slip stitched together.  

The seam between the collar and the lapel (the gore) is left open until the lining is finished.  Oh boy, more poly acetate lining coming right up.  

Getting back on the horse

I've regained my composure after the lining fiasco, and I'm soldiering on.  Getting out the Swedish tracing paper is where I should have started in the first place.  I've laid it over the jacket front and drawn a new pattern.  I actually went back to my old "gal pal", Edna Bishop to do this.  The cutting line where the lining attaches to the facing is 1.25 inches beyond the edge of the facing.  This will allow for a 5/8" seam. 

The pocket was slightly less time consuming the second time around.  I'm showing it next to a Brooks Brothers pocket.  Not too shabby, I say.   

The seam allowance of the lining / facing is then cross stitched onto the underlying canvas to secure it in place.  There is now plenty of extra lining for the side seams.  I think it's time to move on to the back.  

The crash!

I'm sure no one is crazy enough to be sewing along with me, but if you have the Cabrera book there is a huge error (or at least an area of potential confusion) on page 117!  BEWARE!

This is the beginning page of "The Lining".  Of course he has you toss out any patterns you might have and start from square one.  Using the existing back, side and front pattern pieces one adds extra fabric pretty much all around.  The glitch comes with the front lining piece which must overlap the front facing.  The illustration indicates just the 1/2" overlap.  To make this happen, however, one must add at least an extra inch.  In fact, there's no reason to add even more and then trim off the excess at the sides and armscye.  

Alas, I added only 1/2".  To make things even worse, I put in a double piping chest pocket, which probably took at least an hour to make.   In the end the whole mess was too small.  There was no room for a seam allowance at the side seam.  

Back to the drawing board after considerable swearing.  Oh, and did I mention how much I hate working with poly acetate lining material.  

The slippery slope

We all know the feeling.  You're dutifully following the instructions and then things start to get a little crazy.  The coat fronts are moving along nicely, and then Mr. Cabrera tells me to throw out the facing pattern that comes with the pattern, and just wing my own.  Oh man, this is the slippery slope.  Do you play it safe, or proceed into the unknown? 

 I decided to trust the man and draft my own front facing.  This is a critical component of the jacket since it becomes the outside lapel.  The front edge of the facing is cut perfectly straight on grain, and then steamed and pressed into a gentle arc to match the front of the jacket.  If one was using a striped fabric, the stripes would be perfectly parallel to the edge of the lapel.  Makes sense.  Once the facing is sewn to the jacket front, the seams are trimmed, pressed open and hand sewn back onto the twill taping.  This controls the bulk at the point of the lapel and at the curve at the bottom of the jacket front.  With the facing attached I breath a sigh of relief.  Nothing is screwed up.........yet. 

Last of the pad stitching

OK, moving along.  The next step is to pad stitch the lapel area.  I was really dreading this for some reason, but it wasn't difficult at all.  I think all the practice on the plastron paid off.  The pad stitching begins along the roll line in parallel lines.  This time, however, the pick stitches will be on the fashion fabric, so an attempt must be made to make them as small as possible.  Fear not, it's not hard to do.  Plus the stitches will be on the back side of the lapel.  After a few rows, maybe an inch into it, the lapel is rolled over into the position it will take on the jacket.  Holding the lapel in position the pad stitching continues in rows until reaching the seam allowance.  The lapel will now have a natural tendency to roll towards the body when the jacket is worn.  Magic! 

The seam allowances of the canvas must now be gingerly cut off.  Talk about nerve wracking.  One slip of the shears and hours of handstitching are down the drain.  Once trimmed, 3/8" twill tape is hand sewn onto the canvas at the seamlines.  A strip is also placed next to the roll line and cross stitched into place.  There's a whole lot of zen going on here.  

Attaching the jacket fronts to the canvas

I've cut out the jacket fronts and back.  Each front is made up of 3 sections with horizontal pockets.  I'm a little concerned that the pockets might want to sag, so I've inserted a 1" strip of wool canvas at the top edge of each pocket.  This is being held in place with pick stitching.  I saw quite a few jackets with pick stitching on my most recent trip to NYC.  My fabric is quite coarse so the effect is very subtle.  It would be more pronounced on a finer fabric.  There is a good tutorial by Kenneth King that can be found online.  To keep the stitching straight he suggests using a strip of low tack masking tape.  It really couldn't be easier.  I used 2 strands of embroidery floss.  

The jacket fronts are then placed onto the canvas.  The lapel roll lines should be aligned and there should be a 1/2" margin of canvas visible around fashion fabric.  Once things are in position the the whole thing is systematically basted together.  There are 8 specific stitchlines done in an ordered sequence.  While basting, one is smoothing the fabric ahead of the basting stitches.  It's very rewarding to see things coming together.  

The basting lines are positioned so that the jacket fabric can be folded back.  This reveals the edges of the pockets, which are diagonally stitched to the canvas.  Let's take a break before round 2 of pad stitching begins! 

Guys who do (and DON'T) pad stitch

Why are these guys on today's post?  Because I bet none of them has ever pad stitched anything in their entire lives!  Maybe I'm dead wrong, but after spending hours with a needle and thread it seems highly unlikely. 

 

Pad stitching is a method of joining multiple layers of fabric so that they act as one, while at the same time maintaining their individual characteristics.  In short, it's the opposite of using fusibles.  The layers of the plastron are pad stitched together in alternating rows of diagonal stitching.  I used red thread in hopes that it would show up in my photos.  Mr. Cabrera is very reassuring about this whole process.  None of this is visible in the finished jacket.  He suggests stitches of about 3/8" but discourages too much fussing.  "DO NOT spend time measuring your stitches.  Just get a general sense of the size, and proceed."  I love this kind of direction!  

The outside of the canvas ends up covered with rows of diagonal stitches.  The inside flannel becomes  peppered with small stitches.  I tried to do this as loosely as possible so as to not make bulky ridges between the rows.  I still ended up with a ridged effect, but I'm not going to agonize over it.  I loved every bit of this process.  At times, I think I enjoy hand sewing more than running things through the sewing machine.  There's just a certain "connectedness" to the fabric that I enjoy.  Plus I feel connected to the entire history of garment construction as both utility and art.  Turn on the radio, or put on a LONG opera and pad stitch away.  

After a gentle pressing the canvas will be basted to the jacket front.  Oh Boy! 

How to stay busy while the fabric is at the drycleaners

My linen has been renamed a "tablecloth"  by the cleaners, and it will be ready in about a week.  In the meantime I'm moving forward by "preparing the canvas."

 Canvas is the name given to the understructure of the jacket.  It's composed of layers of different interfacings intended to give the jacket shape and also reduce wrinkling and stretching.  The process is described step by step by Mr. Cabrera.  A base of wool canvas is cut 1/2" larger than the jacket front piece.  A piece of hair canvas is cut to a specific shape and placed over the upper chest.  This is known as the "plastron" or shield.  Over this is layered a bias strip of French canvas.  My French canvas from Steinlauf & Stoller is a fusible, so I substituted another layer of wool canvas.  The whole mess is then covered with cotton flannel and basted into place. 

 

Of course, it's possible to buy a ready made jacket front for about $10, but to have something custom made is completely intoxicating.  I loved every bit of this process (even though I totally screwed up my first attempt!)  The next step is pad stitching the plastron into place, and that deserves a post of its own.