Pad Stitching and Steaming the Undercollar

Okay, on to the collar! If you look at the pictures below, you'll see what to expect from your finished collar. I hope these give you a sense of the difference tailoring can make in a garment. In some versions of this coat, the collar has looked a little flat to me, but pad stitching will give you a shape with lots of body and a distinctive roll around the neck.

Now here's how to achieve this look. First you need to cut 1 hair canvas from your collar piece and mark it like so:

In my example, the roll line is marked in red (with red arrows pointing to it). The seam allowance is marked in pink chalk all the way around the collar. Finally, I've marked lines for pad stitching in blue pencil. The area below the roll line (the stand) gets 1/4" pad stitching. (This means that the stitches are 1/4" long and 1/4" wide.) The area above the roll line (the fall) gets 1/2" pad stitching.

Place the hair canvas on top of your under collar fabric.

Baste along the roll line with uneven basting stitches.

Now you can pad stitch the stand (the area below the roll line). Make 1/4" pad stitches and roll the fabric (with your index finger under the roll line) as you go. Do not stitch into the seam allowances.

After you've finished the stand, turn the collar around and pad stitch the fall (the area above the roll line). These stitches are bigger, 1/2". Continue to shape the collar with your hands as you stitch.

Your finished pad stitching will look like this.

Trim off your seam allowances.

Next you're going to steam your under collar and leave it to dry overnight. Pin it around a tailor's ham as it will be rolled around your neck.

I propped mine up against a seam roll. Now, spray it with water and steam the heck out of it. Do not press down on your roll line. You're just applying steam, not pressure.

Leave it to dry overnight. Next step: sewing and shaping the upper collar! You can start now by applying fusible interfacing to your upper collar piece.

Setting in Tailored Sleeves

This is one of my favorite parts of tailoring! Once you've got your sleeves in, your coat is actually starting to look like a coat. Plus, using the method I show you here makes perfect sleeves so easy. It's pretty much the method I used on my red coat last winter (vlogged here), but instead of using a strip of hair canvas, I use strips of wool/mohair fabric. This is what Kenneth King recommends in Cool Couture. Some people suggest lambswool or polar fleece as well. Try it out and see what works for you! I bought this wool and mohair plaid at Paron's here in New York. It was $25 a yard, but I only bought half a yard and that will set in plenty of sleeves. Cut the strips into 12" x 2" rectangles on the bias.

Now, here's a brand new video showing you the method from start to finish.



Of course, if you prefer, you can use the usual method of setting in your sleeves with two rows of gathering stitches.

Tomorrow I'll show you pad stitching the under collar!

Sew-Along: Pockets, Side Seams, and Sleeves

Hey Sew-Alongers! I've spent this week trying to get my coat to the point of setting in the sleeves, since there will definitely be a video for that step (hopefully it will be up Sunday!). Here are the little steps in between, which are all pretty simple.

First, how is everyone doing with the pockets? The instructions are very straightforward; just be sure to use a 3/8" seam allowance when you sew the pockets to each coat piece.

 Next, sew the side seams, going around each pocket, and using your regular seam allowance. I went back and did a second line of stitching on the pockets, 1/8" away from the first. This just gives you some reinforcement on an area that gets a lot of stress.

I'm not doing topstitching on my coat, so I pressed the seams open. This requires clipping the seam allowances above and below the pockets.

Then stitch the shoulder seams. I catch-stitched my shoulder and side seam allowances down, as we did on previous steps.

Yay, now we're up to the sleeves! Sharon says that the under sleeve can always use some extra support, so I fused the entire piece. (An alternative is to baste hair canvas to it.) My fusible ends 1-1/2" from the bottom so it doesn't get doubled up in the hem.

Remember how we added bias strips of interfacing to the coat back to support the hem? Since the sleeves also have a hem, I suggest doing the same thing on the upper sleeve.

Now sew those sleeve pieces together! Catch stitch seam allowances down, if desired. (And if you can do so without it showing on the outside of the fabric.)

Next step: setting in the sleeve! I'm using the method I vlogged about last winter (see it here) but this time I'm going to use Kenneth King's method of using wool/mohair strips rather than hair canvas. You can also use strips of lambswool or even fleece, or just set your sleeves in the traditional way with two rows of gathering stitches. I will explain further in a new video! And then we'll move on to pad stitching the collar.

How's everyone doing?

Tailoring Your Coat Back

Yay, it's time to move on to the coat back! And hallelujah, this will only take one post.

First, a note. You have two options here: you can baste the complete back with hair canvas as we did on the front OR you can use a back stay (pictured above), which covers just the upper part of the coat. The method I'm showing here is the second. A back stay keeps the shoulders of your coat from stretching out, as well as reinforcing the armhole.

Now, before you begin your back stay, it's a good idea to think ahead to the hem on your back pieces. Tailored hems are traditionally interfaced, so I'm adding some fusible strips in this first step. (Because the hair canvas doesn't extend to the hem, as on the front, there needs to be additional interfacing in the hem.) I really like bias strips of weft interfacing for this purpose: they give your hem structure, and the weft has a bit of a texture that you can grip onto with your hem stitches, without it showing on the outside.

I cut my bias strips 3-1/2 inches wide. Note: it's a good idea to cut your interfacing out with pinking shears so it won't leave a ridge on the right side of your fabric. I forgot to do this. Don't be like me!

Then I fused them starting 1 inch from the bottom of all four back coat pieces. This is because you only need the interfacing doubled up on around the fold of the hem. Since this is a 2-inch hem, the fusible will extend 1/2" past the hem, allowing you to catch stitch to it. (Hey, want a good fusible tutorial? I love this one by Ann of Gorgeous Fabrics.)

Now, sew your back pieces together: first, along the princess seams. Second, down the center back.

The next step is to make the back stay. You can trace your pattern pieces to make the back stay pattern, but I find it easier to trace the coat itself. Fold the coat back in half and place it on the fold of your pre-shrunk muslin here. (I'm using hair canvas because my fabric needs more stability, but muslin is traditional and works great.)

 Now trace around your coat neckline, shoulder, armhole, and then down to 3" below the armhole.

Remove the coat back, but make sure the muslin/hair canvas stays pinned in place. Draw a curve from 3" below the armhole up to 8-10" down the center back from the neckline.

 Cut out everything except the bottom edge, cutting on the inside of your pen or chalk lines.

 Cut the bottom with pinking shears.

 Open out the back stay and pin it to your coat back.

 Machine stitch it on the stitching lines.

 I cut the muslin/hair canvas out of my seam allowances.

Aaand . . . that's it! If you haven't cut out your lining pieces, do so now. We'll be attaching the pockets to the front and back pieces and sewing them together next.

A parting shot for the cat lovers in the house. I bought some wool mohair to experiment with Kenneth King's sleeve setting method, and Pip has decided that it's hers. Apparently wool mohair makes a lovely cat bed.

Neat Lapel, Messy Lapel

I generally try to improve my techniques with each task I complete. With my second lapel, I decided I needed to work on the appearance of my pad stitching by hiding the knots and thread tales between the layers of wool and hair canvas. This may sound slightly obsessive, since the stitching is hidden inside the coat, but a hallmark of good tailoring is neat handstitches. ("Like they were made by little mice!")

Here's the messy one. Eek!

And the tidy one. Much better, though my next pad stitching goal is to make my stitches more consistent.

Hiding your thread knots is easy to do: just start and stop each length of stitching between the fashion fabric and hair canvas, rather than on top of it.

How's your pad stitching going, Sew-Alongers?

All About Silk Thread

I've gotten a lot of questions about silk thread this week, so I thought the subject deserved a post of its own. Photographed above are the two types of silk thread I keep on hand: 1) on top, Gutermann #s303, which is the regular-weight thread that can be used for hand or machine sewing. It comes on a blue spool in lots and lots of colors. (Here's an online source.) 2) on the bottom is Gutermann #R753, which is heavier weight silk and is known as buttonhole twist. I use this less, but it does come in handy for making thread chains, like for swing tacks on linings. (Here's another online source which carries both weights in all colors.)

The regular-weight thread on the blue spool is the kind of thread used for most handstitching in tailoring, like pad stitching, basting, and catch-stitching hems and seam allowances. The heavier twist is used for the exquisite handworked buttonholes in expert tailoring, like these. The reason for using silk? Like silk fabric, silk thread is smooth and strong. It slides easily through fabric and interfacing and doesn't show press marks when steamed. Run it through beeswax for extra strength and less tangling. (Casey did a great tutorial yesterday on this; definitely go check it out.)

As for color: as a general rule, you want to match your silk thread to your fashion fabric, but don't worry too much about an exact match. With pad stitching, your stitches won't show on the outside of the garment. For hems and other hand stitches, it's nice to have a thread color that blends with your fashion fabric, but not essential. I would say that matching color is less important than getting silk if you have to choose.

Need a silk substitute? In Cool Couture, Kenneth D. King recommends rayon embroidery thread as a readily-available and affordable option. The brand that most retailers carry seems to be Sulky.

I'm pretty sure this covers it for now. Let me know if you have more questions!

P.S. I thought you might enjoy Pip's participation in my silk thread photoshoot this morning. First, she posed in silhouette behind the curtain.

 Then she popped up for a closer look.

 And bam! Silk thread is fun to knock on the floor.

Thanks, Pippi. I couldn't do it without you.

Tailoring Your Coat Front, Part Three

Okay sewists, no dillydallying today! Let's get right back to our coat fronts. On the last step, we had just sewn the two front pieces together, applied the hair canvas to the coat front (piece A) and catch-stitched the seam allowance down to the hair canvas. Now we tape the roll line! Please check out this video:



Next, you want to baste the area between the roll line and the princess seam like you did on the side piece. As a reminder, use an uneven basting stitch in lines 2" apart from each other.

Now it's time for the pad stitching. I can just feel the mounting excitement in the blogosphere! (I'll turn you all into tailoring geeks yet. Just you wait and see.) Another video for your viewing pleasure:



Some general guidelines for pad stitching:

• Pad stitching is all about shaping! Keep a finger under the roll line as you stitch so that the fabric shapes into a fold as you stitch it.
• Don't pad stitch into the seam allowances.
• Don't worry if the outer fabric gets a little puckery; it will be on the underside of the lapel.
• When you get to the end of a line, don't turn the fabric. Keep it oriented the same as your last row, and just start stitching in the other direction. This will keep your chevron-shapes nice and neat. 
• Your pad stitch length should match the width. So, where your rows of stitches are 1/8" apart, your stitch length should be 1/8". 

When your pad stitching is complete (be patient, it will take a while), you want to steam it and let it dry over night. Double up a damp towel and place it underneath the lapel, thusly:

Now steam the hell out of it. BUT. Do not press down on the lapel. You're forming a soft fold, not a crease. Let it dry this way overnight. Done!

A couple odds and ends to complete on the jacket front:

• This might be a good time to remove the hair canvas from your seam allowances on the lapel and coat front.

• Now, at some point, you also need to cut a window for the buttonholes. Just poke some pins through the buttonhole at each corner. This will help you locate your buttonhole on the canvas side. Connect the pins with chalk markings.

And now cut that baby out!

• Sharon also recommended staystitching through all layers at the armscye.

Whew! I don't know about you all, but I'm a wee bit exhausted. Let's take the weekend to catch up and then Monday we'll start on the coat back. (I've made an executive decision to move padstitching the collar to a later date. More to come on that!) Good news: the back is much easier!

Now go pad stitch like the wind!

Tailoring Your Coat Front, Part Two

Okay! Now you've got your hair canvas all basted to your side pieces. The next step is to attach your uninterfaced front piece (A) to your side piece (B). You may want to trim off the seam allowances on hair canvas of the side piece if you're worried about bulk in the seams. I didn't, and it ended up fine, but it's a matter of preference depending on your fabric.

Here's how I did it (note that this method is Sharon-approved!). I stitched my two pieces together on the princess seam. (Here's my tutorial on princess seams, FYI.) Then I trimmed the interfacing very close to the seam allowance with applique scissors.

Make sure your curves are all notched and clipped around the bust.

Now press the seam open on a tailor's ham. (Remember that I've decided against the pattern's method of pressing the princess seams to the side and top-stitching them. I'm pressing mine open to avoid a bulky seam. If you're following the pattern's instructions, ignore this step.)

Now you're going to catch stitch the seam allowance on the side piece down to the interfacing. Here's what the catchstitch looks like. I did it in bright pink so hopefully you can see it!

And, for good measure, here's a video on sewing the catch stitch! (Note: I've also seen this stitch called a cross stitch and a herringbone stitch.)




Your next task is to cut out the front piece (A) in your hair canvas.

Stay stitch around the seamlines on the hair canvas.

Make sure to transfer the roll line marking to your hair canvas. Mine is marked in pink chalk here.

Now cut off the seam allowance along the princess seam.

Place that interfacing piece onto the fashion fabric pieces, sliding it under the seam allowance on tht front piece side and pinning it in place.

Now catch stitch that seam allowance down to the hair canvas, like you did on the side front.

Am I correct in feeling like this is enough for one day? Next up: taping the roll line and pad stitching the lapel! Then I'll give us the weekend to catch up to the next step. I hope this pacing is feeling do-able for everyone. But let me know if you're freaking out and want more time!