WIPs

I've cut out the lining for the LWD/fitting shell dress. I used 2 yards 5" of silk crepe from stash. IIRC this was from the old Denver Fabrics. It's a very nice fabric, although I've been trying to avoid silk for the last few years, not being a big fan of any of the cleaning options for it.

On the old coat I'm relining, I got all the lining hems done. There are still a few more things to do. I'm noticing the underarms of the coat have been worked over a lot. If I still had any of the fabric I could've put in gussets to replace the worn areas.

I'm setting a new goal, too: for any project I finish, get rid of at least 1 item and ideally 2. I'm very much on track with this so far.

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.