Finished embroidery, and pockets.

I've finally done some more work on my coat. I really need to spend a bit of time working out how to take better pictures though - these are not nearly as sharp as I'd like. Here's the embroidery after I'd finished it, before I tore out all the press'n'seal. That's not difficult, but it takes a while!

And here's what it looks like after I tore out the press'n'seal. I like how it looks. It'll pep up a solid coloured coat, but it's fairly subtle.

Then I decided that instead of the interlining I'd originally planned, I should have underlined. I know there's debate about the difference between those terms, but I've always gone with what I was taught at University. Underlining is a separate layer of fabric attached to each piece of a garment before construction, the unit thereafter treated as a single layer. Interlining is a separate layer between fashion fabric and lining - like batting in a quilt. There was No Way I was going to start that embroidery again, so I joined the underlining part way, and then joined it to each piece of the front, like this:

It works fine, but underlining before I'd embroidered would have been a whole lot smarter. (Have I mentioned that I shouldn't be let loose on anything requiring Any Mental Effort Whatsoever?)

Next up were the welt pockets in the fronts. I hate the way patterns have you do welt pockets, so I always use a method I think I first saw in an article in Threads written possibly by the fabulous Ann Steeves . My very humble apologies if I'm wrong about that. Anyway, you create a faced opening, and sew the welts behind it.

First I cut a rectangle of fabric ( she has you use silk organza, but in my neck of the woods that is neither readily available, nor inexpensive) and traced the pocket opening onto it. I positioned that over the (threadmarked) pocket placement, and sewed around it. Then I cut the opening, turned it through and pressed. After that, It looks like this:

It looks like this from the back:

Then I sewed the basted together welts behind the opening. The extra layer of fabric gives you a much more stable edge to sew them to, and gives far fewer headaches!

Here they are:

All I need to do now to finish the pockets is to attach the pocket bags. I'll also catch stitch the facing to the underlining, as that will help to support the pocket.

I was starting to think that this coat didn't want to be sewn - the washing machine packing a sad when I wanted to preshrink my underlining was a hint. Then when I was working on the coat last night I realised that I hadn't cut front facings. For some reason the facing pattern pieces had got put with the lining pattern pieces and missed. And there is not enough fabric to cut them. After a bit of swearing I figured that if I really have to I could cut the facings from lining (if I underline the heck out of it), since the collar is so wide that the facing is a way back from the front edge. However, I'm going to see if I can get more fabric next time I go to town. And then when I went to sew the centre fronts to the side fronts I realised that after spending AGES threadmarking all the dots and match points, I had missed the very first one I actually needed! It's the AMEW thing again. I'm doing a lot better on the sewing than the thinking.