Costume-Making 101: It's all in the details...
Well time sure does fly when Real Life comes calling - who'd have thought that we could all go so long without the latest in my costuming (mis-) adventures?
So what's been keeping me away from the laptop and the blogging I hear you ask? Well, in no particular order - new mobile phone and contract, sorting out new wireless broadband, buying an Xbox One (yay!), pre-university trips to London with the little 'un to take photos of stuff, acquiring new patterns, buying fabric and... oh yes, finally getting my hands on a Kai Arts Play Edward Kenway. More on that when I figure out vlogging.
Enough ado, let's look at where we're up to with the overcoat shall we? When we left the non-stop sewing action last time around the coat was together, it fitted and I was pretty pleased with the results up to this point. Construction-wise the coat was 90% done, with just a few small additions to complete before moving on to the detailing and the hood.
First off, cuffs. I had the sleeve ends as raw edges at this point and still needed to add the cuff turn-backs from Simplicity 2333 to complete them. They were fairly easy to attach, though I should've followed the pattern and added them when constructing the sleeves as access is more difficult when you're working around the bulk of an overcoat...
So here's the cuffs added with a simple machine stitch:
Both the outer fabric and lining denim were attached at the same time, then turned correct side out and hemmed together to finish the end of the sleeve:
And here they are finished on the coat itself, ready to move on to the detailing:
With the sleeves now finished, it was time to move on to the fun part - the detailing and finishing, plus the hood. These are the parts I really enjoy on a project as the light at the end of the tunnel is more than a faint glow and you're fairly sure that it isn't the train...
I'd had in mind to use silver-coloured military-style buttons for this project, along with a deep red trim around the button holes and red embroidery to tie it all together. So, some eBay-ing later and a few days' wait, I ended up with my buttons and some embroidery tests for good measure. The buttons themselves are just a pewter material, but this did mean I could get 40 assorted buttons for under £9 delivered. Here's what I received, along with my embroidery test:
One thing to note here - if you're going to be embroidering with a machine, make sure you test on a sample of the actual material you'll be adding the finished design to. The swatch above includes both the corduroy and denim and you'll notice that the top line of stitching is much tighter and dense than the lower one; the lower line was tried first before realising my machine could embroider even more tightly than I thought. Just for some early pay-off, I sewed two buttons to the back of the coat to see how they looked:
Right then, the buttons looked good, time for some button-holes! I used to dread these, but after a couple of tries on my test patch in the deep red thread I'd chosen, I ended up with this:
First collar button-hole added! I sorted out the other side and had to work out where the buttons would go. For this, I found a method that seemed to work. Try the garment on and position the button-hole to where it would normally sit when worn. Next, work out the direction of tension the button would be under when worn; in the case of the collar, this would be upwards, as the collar naturally wants to unfold. Take a pin and push it through the button hole just slightly towards the end where the tension will sit, in this case, the bottom of the slant. This way, once the garment is worn, the button will sit nicely in the corner of the button hole, leaving your nice complimentary stitching exposed to one side.
To open the button holes I liberally applied a line of Fray Check (I think that's what it's called) to both sides of the fabric layers, including the stitching on both sides. Once dry, you can open the hole with a chisel or craft knife (being VERY careful) and trim off any stray strands with a small pair of scissors.
So, before I call it a day with this entry, it was at this point that something occurred to me - if I can machine embroider straight lines really simply, I wonder if I could vary the width while sewing to create a tapered line?
Turns out, I could. So, if I could do this, could I do the same with curved or hand-drawn lines? Cue appropriate test patch:
Pretty happy with that as a test!
Alas, that concludes tonight's updates - the missus is done with Zumba and little 'un is vlogging and won't remember to eat until I put dinner in front of her so I must down tools for the night. Check back soon for a full explanation of my newly discovered love of machine embroidery, completing the rest of the button holes and the start of the hood saga!
Cheers all, until next time.
