Works in progress

OK, so here's what the super sekr1t Patternreview challenge contest is going to be....

Seriously, though, this is what I'm actually working on: Simplicity 1540 (on their site or on PR). I'm very pleased with the pattern so far. It has a proper upper collar and undercollar, the latter cut on the bias with a CB seam. I suspect I might have to deal with more turn-of-cloth than the pattern intends, but we'll see. The collar shape itself looks very nice; the back has princess seams; and the front has both princess seams and princess darts. I do wish the sleeve were two-piece, with a less-symmetric cap, but it's far from the worst cap shape I've ever seen.

Since I shortened the entire upper chest, when I shortened the sleeve cap, I tried to err on the side of blending such that the front curve was scooped out more and the back built up a little. I'm also interfacing the top part of the patch pockets, and only the outer half-plus-a-little-bit-past-the-fold of the sleeve bands instead of the entire things. I'm leaving off the back tab, because I'll be using very round buttons and wouldn't want to lean back on one of them. I did cut enough pieces for two tabs, so I could use them as epaulettes or pocket tabs if I wanted.

Technically, that'll be my project to finish in the second half of April.

In other news, I may have finished the Malmedy jacket. I did an M-stitch around all the outer edges, and I decided to tape the roll line; otherwise I'd have to guess at where it's meant to be every time I put the jacket on. I still have to fix it up a little, but the tape does give a tangible edge to fold against. I don't know if the back armholes are entirely satisfactory, but it's just a question of whether to leave my deeper stitching in or not.

Relining this old coat

Several years ago (8? 10?), with that much less of a skillset, I made New Look 6686: Pendleton wool coating on the outside, acetate for the lining. Well, if you know about acetate you can see where this is going: parts of the lining turned to shreds, particularly since the coat is very long and its hem got exposed to snow.

So, a few years ago I removed the body of the lining and cut a new one in some other (non-acetate) synthetic satin. I've forgotten what it is, because I bought it at Fleishman's in Philadelphia, which makes it a few years old now. Yup, I cut and made the new lining that long ago and the coat's been hanging around unlined the whole time, in my too-short coat wardrobe with its hem getting squashed on the floor. I've started ironing out those wrinkles but it's going to take some more work.

Finally I got around to sewing the lining in the other day. While I was at it I added a hanging loop at the back neck. I hadn't been set on replacing the pockets — they were in surprisingly decent shape as far as the integrity of the fabric itself — but in the end I decided to do so, because the acetate had turned purple (the coat itself is a dark navy).

I'm going to let this hang on the dress form for a while before checking the relative lengths of the hems. I suspect the CB seam may have stretched. I did repair the hem as some of the catchstitching was gone, though I probably should've put that off until after checking for growth... oh well.

Besides all that there's the issue of how wearable this coat really is. The pattern certainly has a 90s feel to it, what with all the volume and the shoulder pads. The armholes — underarm dolman seams, really — are very low, which is unhelpful if you need to do any significant reaching, as that pulls the entire torso of the coat upward and the belt eventually ends up at Urkel level, where it inevitably loosens. I've mended the underarm seams a couple times, despite having originally reinforced them as the pattern directed. The bottom part of coat has some sort of fading or staining going on (from road salt, I guess?) that has created a subtle lighter brownish spotted pattern. It might be nice if it looked intentional. I could cut the coat to the shorter length and thereby remove all or most of the affected area, but given the impracticality of the cut in the upper body, I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Anyway, I do plan to finish the lining hems and see if this ends up getting worn.