It’s true with any sewing project that the fabric you choose can make-or-break your garment, and when sewing a coat, it’s easily one of the most important elements to get right (no pressure!).  After all, this is a garment you’re wearing to keep you warm and protect you from the elements – the functionality of the coat fabric is critical.

But with a lot of different options available at our fingertips, thanks to so many great fabric retailers online stocking oodles of fabric, how the heck do you go about selecting a fabric that works for your pattern, your lifestyle, your climate, and know if it’s going to give you good results?

This video excerpt from my upcoming new course Create Your First Coat, launching later this year, explains how to determine if your coat fabric will be warm enough by using a simple test (and you get to see me look silly in the process).  There’s also some things to consider if you’re working with a fabric like cashmere, which I cover towards the end of the clip.

Pretty nifty, right?

If you’re interested in learning more, you can watch the entire lesson on selecting coat fabrics over at my new course site, Wardrobe Academy.

 

What questions do you have about sewing coats?

 

Hey there sewing lovelies!  Since this month is Coat Month on Sew Wrong, I thought it would be fun to chat wth everyone LIVE about one of my favorite topics to geek out about, tailoring.

I’m teaching a mini-workshop on Saturday 1/23 at 2PM EST about four of the most important tailoring tools you need to make a great looking coat and different ways to use them to get great results.  That’s right – this is a LIVE event (ahhh!!!) and I’ll be taking questions at the end of the workshop to answer any questions you may have about making coats.

Some topics that will be covered in the hour-long workshop are:

• How to give structure and support to the most important parts of your coat
• How to create smooth seams and crisp corners that don’t look rounded or bumpy
• How to use your iron to get great results – tailoring is all about that steam!

Interested? You can sign up for your spot on this page here.

Hope to see you there!

Last week, we covered how to go about picking out a pattern for sewing your first coat.  This week, we’re going to dive into more detail about the tools you need to sew and tailor a coat (other than your sewing machine, obvs).  If I had to guess, you probably own most of these tools or are at least a bit familiar with what they are.

First things first – a pressing ham (also called a tailor’s ham) is going to be your best friend.  The photo above is my mom’s pressing ham from 70’s, look at that nice tag!  I’m sure you already use a pressing ham on a regular basis for darts and other curved areas, like princess seams.  You’re going to use your ham for the same type of application – steaming the crap out of collars to shape them, any curved seams, and shaping sleeve caps.

Similar to a pressing ham, a seam roll looks like a tightly stuffed fabric sausage with a wool on one side, cotton on the other.  Seam rolls are used for getting into areas that are hard to press open, like a sleeve seam.  Seam rolls are also handy for pressing open seams and avoiding indentation of the seam into your garment fabric – definitely a possible problem when working with certain fabrics.

My sewing life changed when I received a tailor board for my birthday a few years ago.  Not only do I use it regularly for sewing, but it was a life-saver when I made my first coat.  It’s the perfect surface for pressing small parts of a coat, like a collar seam or pocket welt, but you can also use it to press corners to make them crisp and point, and the curved edges match up to the shape of armholes and and sleeve caps.  Plus, my came with a set of padded covers, so I can choose whether I want to use them with the board for soft shaping or without for crisper finishes.

I love it when sewing gets bad-ass, like using a hammer to open buttonholes or install rivets.  Using a clapper is pretty fun – after pressing open a seam, I pound the crap out of the seam with the clapper to flatten it into submission, especially when working with wool.  It’s also helpful to place the clapper over the seam after pressing and apply pressure with it to the seam, helping the seam “learn” to stay open.

Before I had a sleeve board, it was always a struggle trying to press open sleeve seams and even pants seams – those tiny areas are too small to fit over an ironing board.  Essentially, this is a small ironing board that can fit in those places.  When making a coat, it’s so important to press open your sleeve seams.

With all of this talk about pressing open seams and using steam, the most obvious tool for making a coat is a good steam iron.  Mine is nothing fancy – just a Black n Decker Iron I’ve used for the past three or four years.  Just because an iron is expensive doesn’t mean it’s going to be any better; I bought a pricey Rowenta and it only lasted for a few months, and I’ve heard the same tale of woe from other sewists.  As long as it gets hot and can shoot out a lot of steam, it will work.

I hope you found this guide helpful as you gather everything you need to make a coat.  As an extra goodie, I put all of this information together in a handy cheatsheet with images – stick it on your bulletin board over your sewing machine as a quick-reference tool!

Download the Tailoring Tools Cheatsheet 

It’s that time of year – the days are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping, and the sewing blogosphere is turning to coat sewing.  Just in the last few weeks, Erika and Heather flashed their new coats and coat pattern, respectively, and Jenny made a fabulous trench.  My friends, it is coat making season.  Bring it on, winter.

Having made some coats myself and discovering a geeky love for tailoring, I wanted to pull together some past posts with information that you may find helpful for jumping into the world of coat sewing.  At first, I was overwhelmed with trying to compile information on making coats, since the majority of what’s out their is geared towards traditional suit tailoring.  Plus, a lot of the times patterns won’t tell you how to go about tailoring your coat to achieve a nice, professional look.  Tailoring = hidden engineering.

Gathering the Coat Supplies – these are all of the materials I used for my Yona Coat, pictured above.

Tailoring the Coat – this is a pretty lengthy post on how I went about tailoring my coat, from pad-stitching the lapel and taping the roll line all the way to creating special sleeve stays for the raglan sleeves and interlining my coat with flannel.

The Finished Coat – I learned some more as I made my way to the end of the coat and documented some of the changes in this post, such as choosing a different lining material.

If you’re not sure where to look for coating materials or supplies to make your coat, here are some great places to start:

Mood Fabrics – kind of a no-brainer.  They have a whole section devoted to coat fabrics
Britex – gorgeous wools, more on the pricey side but so beautiful (I pine for their fabrics)
B&J Fabrics – if you call them, they can send you swatches of Sunback Lining, one of the few places I found that carries this type of lining
Vogue Fabrics – they stock Thinsulate…I need to try this out in my next coat!  They also have flannel-backed lining fabric
Steinlauf and Stoller – I bought all of my interfacing from them when I was in NYC, but you can call them and order what you need over the phone

Click here to download a FREE Coat Supply Shopping List