Hi all again. I've already appended a conclusion to my fitting post but I thought I'd post some reflections in case anyone had any comments (and perhaps may help other first-timers!). I've also got a couple of questions for next time round – which I'm keen to get started on asap!
Here she is (I'm not a Barbour brand ambassador, by the way...)
There appears to be creasing on the lapel here but it that doesn't really appear in real life (and goes away completely when it's sitting over the chest).
Overall, I'm pretty pleased. It's wearable which is more than I was hoping for when I started.
The main problem I have is the fit over the back, which I've commented on in my other post. If anyone can help me with half back width measurement, please comment! It's not too bad at all though.
I have the dreaded teeth on the top collar. I think I spent literally 30 minutes stretching it – just didn't seem to work enough. Do some fabrics just stretch less than others? If this happens is there an alternative or does one just have to persist? Fortunately, it's invisible when the coat is on.
I got a gap in my pocket jettings like this most times I tried:
NB this happens at the first stage i.e. before the jettings are basted into place. I overcame this by basting them right together before sewing but I don't believe Rory does anything in the videos – it just seems to happen by magic, and isn't mentioned as a potential pitfall. What am I doing wrong?
I personally found making buttonholes much easier when I switched my mindset to thinking of each stitch individually, rather than as a 'row of stitches'. I spent a while thinking of the stitches as too far down the form-function scale. My buttonholes were then ugly! Seems obvious now though.
I personally found I had put too much fullness in the lining for felling. That wasn't a surprise as obviously you'd rather have too much. In the end I found it easiest to fell (invisibly) when it was tight enough to hold a line. This turned out to be the spots where I'd included the least fullness.
A note to anyone doing this for the first time – it's obvious now but don't cut the sleeve lining for the cuff before you check the inlay at the sleevehead. Rory mentions the seam allowance after making this cut, which works if you've not put it in the wrong place but leaves an unfortunate hole in the cuff lining if you haven't! Oops. On a similar note, I found I cut the lining too early around the armhole as when I added in the pleat it sort of messed the shape up. I felt it may have been easier – and I stress only because I made other mistakes – to wait to cut out this part of the lining until it was on the forepart. Not sure if this is a terrible idea or not! The other beginner's mistake I made was mistaking the cross marks I made on the facing tongue to be 'wrong side' marks. I then proceeded to fuse interfacing onto the right side...
I found the handcraft approach to lining so much simpler than trying to do anything involving turning things inside out. Yes, felling is laborious but I think you gain so much from putting everything where you want it and being able to do all your lining without carefully measuring and so on. Just generally, doing so much by hand really felt easier than doing it by machine in a lot of ways because of the control it provided. (Even if that control wasn't in the most expert of hands...)
That's it from me, as I say if anyone has any comments that'd be really helpful for next time!
"Yes, felling is laborious but I think you gain so much from putting everything where yo..."
Hand felling the lining is my favorite part of making a coat, and I find the HTC method of construction incredibly organic, its like the garment grows out of your hands.
I initially learned by watching Japanese tailoring videos [they were the clearest to follow] and that method is all about hyper precision and single stitch accuracy. I dont think the finished garment has anything like as much of "you" in it.
Hi! Your comments echo so much of the issues I’ve found making my first jacket! So yes- great help to beginners. I relate so well to pocket ends- two out of four ends look great, and I thought I’d done them so precisely. Re lining- yes, I’ve just hit that issue with armscyes; the only thing I can think to do (and am in middle of trying it) is to sew extra lining to where it falls short. Won’t look great inside but most of it will be taken up by armscye seam.
I am keen to do a second jacket as I feel I’ve learnt so much making errors in this one!
Just realised this is an old post! Never mind, hope it doesn’t matter!
For a first-ever coat, I'd say that's a very good job. FWIW, I certainly couldn't have done it on my own. When I took tailoring classes at FIT, we spent an entire term making samples of all the pieces that go into making a coat. I gather that when they had people go directly from the trousers course (the prerequisite) to a one-term jacket course, many of the students either couldn't finish or their results weren't good. It was incredibly boring, but it did help. When I took the jacket course after a delay of many years because FIT didn't schedule it, my jacket looked good but it was still far from perfect. And unlike you, I didn't have to draft and fit a pattern but was given one drafted by the teacher, who was a tailor, and we weren't taught hand buttonholes. We took our jackets to Jonathan Embroidery, an establishment in the NYC garment center that has a machine button hole making service.
Did you use the wool from the kit? It could be the photography, but yours looks like a wool with a hard face, like gabardine. Your right front dart, particularly, the top third, is pressed better than the one on the left. The right sinks into the material and is as unnoticeable as a dart can be when pressed in that kind of wool. The left is more prominent. We were always told that beginners should use softer, spongy wools like tweed because they are more forgiving. They are easier to press and mistakes in pressing can be removed more easily. If you have to remove stitches, the holes disappear with a bit of steam.
I also prefer doing the lining by hand, it makes more sense to me. But as you say, the felling has to be neat. The first jacket (not that I've made so many) I ever made was a production-style women's jacket. We fused the wool by taking it to a garment center place called Quickfuse and bagged the lining. It was suggested that I experiment with the lining sleeve hems. I did one by machine and the other by hand. The machined one looked better because my felling wasn't good enough at that time.
I've had that issue with the lining on the jetted pockets. In addition to basting the jets, it helps to pull on the prong when sewing over the base of the triangle. If you turn the pocket to the right side and pull you can check that it's working. If it's a real problem, you could baste it in place (use real basting thread that breaks easily), machine sew over it, and then remove the basting thread.
It's also possible to sew down the prongs by hand, but I think the consensus is that using the machine produces nicer pocket ends because of the rigidity of the machine stitch.
To distinguish the wrong side from the right, I'll often hand stitch an "X" with two horizontal stitches at the top and bottom on the wrong side. On the right side, it looks like "=." I don't know if that's understandable from my description. You leave short tails and when you no longer need the marking you pull it out. It's a good thing to do if you aren't going to do all the work in one day; chalk can rub out.
For me, the "secret" is to do lots of samples until I can do a presentable job. I may not be able to do it perfectly, but at the least I want to see a significant improvement. When I took classes, my approach sometimes used to get me into trouble because I'm a slow sewer and did most of my work on the FIT industrial machines, which meant a trip down there, but it made the most sense to me to keep working at it instead of just pushing ahead. It was the act of repetition and experimentation with different stitch lengths, threads, interfacing, and materials (we bought our own, so they were never exactly what the teacher was using) that helped me learn and improve. Obviously, there's no time pressure with self-study.