Yes, Virginia, there has been some progress

Good morning everyone!

Yesterday, I was gifted with rare, uninterrupted daytime sewing time by a friend who took Jack off my hands for a few hours.  Wow!  You can get soooo much done during the day when you are fresh and don’t have to deal with sub-par lighting.  I almost completely constructed the shell (minus the facing).  Saturday night, I fused my little interfacing heart out with Kashi’s interfacing.  I had enough for everything but the sleeves, so I will use Pam Erny’s for the sleeves, because I received my order last Thursday.  In retrospect, I guess I could have waited for my order to arrive, but then I wouldn’t have all that nice doubleknit now would I?    

I thought I’d share with you a little trick I picked up on the interwebs… I think it was from R0bin’s blog, A Little Sewing on the Side.  She interlined her winter coat with hymo and to reduce bulk at the darts, she cut the excess fabric from the dart of her fashion fabric after sewing the dart, and she just cut the hymo on the dart legs before sewing it to the fashion fabric.  Et voilá!  So while I forgot to cut the excess fabric from the dart of my fashion fabric, I did remember to cut the dart legs on my interfacing.  So when I was ready to fuse, I just brought the sides of the dart on the interfacing together as if it was sewn and fused it to the fabric that way.  It worked like a charm.  See the picture below for how I cut out my interfacing.  Using the pattern pieces, I just lifted up the edges of the pieces to cut inside the cutting line so that each interfacing piece would be slightly smaller than the fabric piece.  That way, I would reduce bulk and reduce the chances of fusing my ironing board! 

And here’s all my pieces (minus the sleeves) interfaced and ready to be sewn.  Now isn’t that a pretty picture???

So, as I mentioned before, I had a lot of time to sew yesterday.  I completed the outer shell construction during the day and last night I made the tie belt.  I did a lot of top stitching.  A. LOT.  I love it.  On Carolyn’s recommendation, I used the special topstitching stitch on my Emerald 183 (remember, I am not using my “new” Singer Featherweight 221 yet until I get the kinks figured out).  I love this stitch!  Basically, it’s a straight stitch that’s slightly longer and is sewn twice, side by side, so that it’s slightly wider and longer looking, making for a beautiful topstitch.  I practiced different ways to topstitch on scraps before I actually did it on my coat.  BTW, I highly recommend that; I always practice my stitches for every new piece of fabric I sew.  That way there’s no nasty surprises during construction.  I tried two threads through the needle with an even longer stitch, but the stitches weren’t consistent.  My only wish for the special topstitching stitch would be the option to make it longer than 3.0 which is the max length setting on my machine.  I think the topstitching would look even better at 3.5.  But I still love the way my topstitching looks now, so I’m a happy camper. 

So tonight, I will fuse my sleeves, re-cut my lining back pieces (remember the dreaded grease ring?) and continue constructing my coat.  By my calculations (time you think it will take you to finish x 3 = actual time to finish), I might be able to finish this coat by Weds night.  That is, if I put in three solid evenings of at least 4 hours of sewing time each night.  Remember, I’m a slow sewist.

Wish me luck!

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