Coat progress report

Dear readers,

I have a confession to make: I made a wrong fabric choice for the Chanel coat!

First of all, it turned out the wool I had wasn't wool at all, but some synthetic fabric, which almost melted under my iron. Oops! I've had that fabric in my stash for few years. I remember it was really cheap (no wonder!) when I bought it, and there were few remnant pieces of fabric - one piece of 1.60m x 1.40m, and another one of 0.80m x 1.40m.

The second thing - I tested the quilting stitches on the fabric only after cutting it, and the stitches didn't blend into the shell fabric, but remained clearly visible. I tried quilting by hand, and it worked well, but I am not a patient person, and my coat would probably end up as an UFO. Hence, I decided to pass over the quilting, and try to make something out of my cheap-wanna-be-wool fabric (even though it's a cheap synthetic, it really is a gorgeous fabric).

Since there were no quilting, I decided to interface all the pieces, to give the coat some stability and stiffness. I used medium weight interfacing.



The silk I used for lining frays A LOT! I had to finish the seam allowances with a zig zack stitch. Also, some of the silk threads ended up in my nose and throat, causing cough and sneezing.

Here's a sleeveless version of the coat. Note that lining is just hanging under the shell, it is not sewed to it yet.



The patch pockets are sewn by hand to the shell of the coat.

I added the sleeves in the meanwhile, so here's the picture.



I really like how it looks!

Here's what's left to do:
1. press the sleeves
2. apply shoulder pads
3. attach the lining/facing to the coat
4. sew the trim band
5. sew the frogs

Hopefully, I'll finish those during the following week.