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janestarzThe second half of last week was rather hectic so I had to skip the Dressdiary entries for a little bit but I hope to make it up to you today.
I had made piping on Tuesday, and on Wednesday after work I found myself in the sewing room again, ready to sew some panels. Jeroen would come over on Sunday and he would need to fit something. I pondered for a moment what to sew. I could sew the lining, for easy adjustments, or sew the outer shell and go for the visual win.
I decided to sew the outer shell first. Because of all the piping, it would be more labour-intensive than the lining. If I had that finished on Sunday in time for his fitting, the work would be over halfway done.
First, I sewed piping on the mid-front panels. I made sure I had them mirrored before sewing the piping with the piping foot. I also sewed piping to one of the back panels. And that's about all I got done on Wednesdaynight. I was a bit tired with sewing and I started slacking off.
Thursdaynight I didn't get around to any sewing because I went to the Mary Poppins musical with Palanthe, which was awesome. (I paid more attention to costumes and scenery than the story, I must admit, but that's a normal defeciency with the seamstress class).
Friday's my day off, so I got a lot more sewing done. I spent most of my morning on the coat and got pretty far. I took my center-back panels (one with piping, one without) and pinned them together:
And then there was more sewing. I opened up the seam to illustrate how the piping was sewn down.
And then I hit my first MAJOR snag in the process.
In my previous project with piping I used a sturdy cotton. As you can imagine, the cotton doesn't drape very nicely and it's so sturdy it doesn't warp any way. This linen-cotton blend I've been using... it's lovely to drape. And that's a problem...
Because I sewed the piping down, one panel became very rigid. The other panel is still as 'fluid' as the fabric originally was. When sewing, the top panel without the piping would 'run away' from my piping foot and if I'd continue, seam would be horribly puckered!
I'd never had this problem before because the sturdy cotton at least behaves. The linen-cotton blend...does not.
In previous projects, I've found that it sometimes helps if the more fluid fabric (like lining) is on the bottom, because somehow it is distributed more evenly, or maybe it just has nowhere to run to. But for this project, that is hardly possible. I tried pinning perpendicular...
I placed a pin every inch or so, which helped a lot. It still wasn't perfect, but pressing the seam took care of most of it.
Next up was the top back panel. It's a little wider than the bottom panels, which makes for an excellent shape once they're divided evenly and sewn. It will allow for extra movement in the shoulders.
You can also see how strong the piping is in this pic.
After pressing this seam, the piping foot would also like to demonstrate how awesome it is in topstitching. Thanks to a variable needle position, I can determine where the topstitching has to be...to the millimeter!
There's also piping in the shoulder seams. After pressing, this is what the top part of the coat looks like.
At this point, I really had to leave for Delft, but I got the coat mostly into a wearable state for Jeroen on Sunday. I was happy to note that the slight puckering that was left in the back seam is near-invisible once it's hanging from someone's shoulders.
I had made piping on Tuesday, and on Wednesday after work I found myself in the sewing room again, ready to sew some panels. Jeroen would come over on Sunday and he would need to fit something. I pondered for a moment what to sew. I could sew the lining, for easy adjustments, or sew the outer shell and go for the visual win.
I decided to sew the outer shell first. Because of all the piping, it would be more labour-intensive than the lining. If I had that finished on Sunday in time for his fitting, the work would be over halfway done.
First, I sewed piping on the mid-front panels. I made sure I had them mirrored before sewing the piping with the piping foot. I also sewed piping to one of the back panels. And that's about all I got done on Wednesdaynight. I was a bit tired with sewing and I started slacking off.
Thursdaynight I didn't get around to any sewing because I went to the Mary Poppins musical with Palanthe, which was awesome. (I paid more attention to costumes and scenery than the story, I must admit, but that's a normal defeciency with the seamstress class).
Friday's my day off, so I got a lot more sewing done. I spent most of my morning on the coat and got pretty far. I took my center-back panels (one with piping, one without) and pinned them together:
And then there was more sewing. I opened up the seam to illustrate how the piping was sewn down.
And then I hit my first MAJOR snag in the process.
In my previous project with piping I used a sturdy cotton. As you can imagine, the cotton doesn't drape very nicely and it's so sturdy it doesn't warp any way. This linen-cotton blend I've been using... it's lovely to drape. And that's a problem...
Because I sewed the piping down, one panel became very rigid. The other panel is still as 'fluid' as the fabric originally was. When sewing, the top panel without the piping would 'run away' from my piping foot and if I'd continue, seam would be horribly puckered!
I'd never had this problem before because the sturdy cotton at least behaves. The linen-cotton blend...does not.
In previous projects, I've found that it sometimes helps if the more fluid fabric (like lining) is on the bottom, because somehow it is distributed more evenly, or maybe it just has nowhere to run to. But for this project, that is hardly possible. I tried pinning perpendicular...
I placed a pin every inch or so, which helped a lot. It still wasn't perfect, but pressing the seam took care of most of it.
Next up was the top back panel. It's a little wider than the bottom panels, which makes for an excellent shape once they're divided evenly and sewn. It will allow for extra movement in the shoulders.
You can also see how strong the piping is in this pic.
After pressing this seam, the piping foot would also like to demonstrate how awesome it is in topstitching. Thanks to a variable needle position, I can determine where the topstitching has to be...to the millimeter!
There's also piping in the shoulder seams. After pressing, this is what the top part of the coat looks like.
At this point, I really had to leave for Delft, but I got the coat mostly into a wearable state for Jeroen on Sunday. I was happy to note that the slight puckering that was left in the back seam is near-invisible once it's hanging from someone's shoulders.
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