Sewing the Stella Coat
Back a few decades ago, my wardrobe had a fairly good sprinkling of self-made clothes. In later years that has lessened to handkitted items, but I actually miss it. For quite some years now I do want self-sewn items not only in my historical wardrobe, but into my everyday wardrobe as well. You've seen attempts of it with the bubble pants here and here, but the emphasis is still on historical clothes or stuff to make for someone else.
After the great lull of the first half of last year I tried to make up for the time lost and done quite a lot of sewing, but at the beginning of the year, now I wanted to sew something for myself. Something that is not for reenactment, not for an event, not for money, not for someone else, but something "modern" and for myself.
I've seen the Stella coat on a friend of mine, and it was a love at first sight. That is something I absolutely adore. It mixes historical and modern wibes perfectly, it is just different enough without being totally outlandish, it is pretty, and it has a bottom, that if I need to wear a coat over some historical dress in period I do not have proper outerwear for, I would not look akward.
Originally I planned to use a different fabric, but when I bumped into this in the late fall, I knew I wanted my amazing technicolor dreamcoat. I also found lovely purple striped lining fabric, and some wool...quilted... thing, to use as a warm lining layer.
Once again, I faced the fact that there is no sewing Ravelry-like database, as I wanted to see as many finished items as I could, but, aside of the one my friend made, I could only find the one that is pictured on the pattern itself, and an orange version on the Pattern Review website. By now even less info is available on the pattern, as I cannot find even the pattern on Etsy anymore. As far as I know the designer sold her company, but I have no idea why the new owner pulled everything off the net. I am lucky that I got the pattern at all.
Anyhow...
I had the pattern printed at the printers in A0 (and it cost me an arm and a leg... having the pattern printed actually cost me more than the fabric -including the lining and the warming layer- so I am not likely to do that again- so I am going back to printing, with my laser-printer, I bought especially for this purpouse, and taping many-many pages together). I do love it enough to want to sew it again, and I am not about to pay this much, if I would need it in another size, so I copied the pieces onto another piece of paper.
The instructions said, if you have a fabric with nap or directional pattern, you will need more, but I easily fitted the pieces onto 3,5 meter (and now I need to figure out something for the 1,5 meters I have left over).
I spent almost a whole day basting the lining and the warming layer, all the while wondering if I should overlock the edges or not. I know, the insides of the coat are completely closed with the lining, so I didn't had to, but I always have the urge to work really clean, even if nobody ever will see that, not even me.
Anyhow, I broke the needle on the lock-machine, and though I have a few dozens of needles, the overlock needs different ones than my straight stitch machine. (I know, where I will start shopping , when I leave the flat the next time - hey there were freezing temps, and snow outside, I was not about to leave if I didn't absolutely had to.) So that solved the question. No serged/overlocked edges.
While sewing I had the feeling that while the "idea" of this coat is really great, it is pretty, they have not given much though to the technical solutions.
I am not sure, why do I feel that, but maybe because though I am NOT a taylor, I did train in a factory, back when it was making stuff for brands like BOSS, and I did learn a lot of stuff there.
-The first thing that was glaring at me, the pockets. You supposed to make the seam with the gathered peplum(-y kind of piece), and then make a welt poket a couple of centimeters ABOVE that seamline. For me that was totally illogical. Why not put the pocket INTO that already existing style/seamline? That is exactly what I did, though I was concentrating so much on how to do that, I forgot the flaps for the pocket, but hey, it works like this too. Maybe next time.
Note: Since I made the coat, I wore it a few times, and the pocket is too high, even this way. Though I made a fairly big and stabil pocket - that is sewn into the seamline on both sides-, bigger than the original pattern gives you, my phone, my keys, my mittens fit into them, but they are too high to be able to put my hands in them comfortably. Next time, I will think about a pocket put into the side seam.
-I had the whole coat handstitched around the edges, partly because no matter how hard I ironed, and steamed it, the edges would roll, but also, partly because the outer and the inner layers are not fixed, and it would've pulled. I could have machine stitched, but that would've make a way to sharp of a line. That handstitch seemed like a good enough compromise, even if it took me a day.
From then I tried my best to follow the instruction, but I know that if I will do this again (actually, I do have plans to make it again), there are a few things that needs to be solved:
- The hidden buttonband thingie. It is really cool, but there is 4 layers of fabric there, which are not fastened to each other. Out of the three finished coat I could dug up on the Internet, all three has pulling at the buttons. At the end I handtitched down the buttonband to the front of the coat with tiny stitches, that like stitches (the taylors do on the collar- pad stitching) hardly show on the right side, if at all.
-The hemline. In tailoring, even if the piece is baglined, the hemline is finished (usually folded up, and stitched down) and then the lining is stitched to that. So the inner and outer fabric is meeting a cm or two above the hemline, and there is space to leave a bit of extra lining fabric for comfort. With the Stella, the outer layer and the lining is sewn togethere at the edge. and you are supposed to iron it down really hard (after turning it out to the right side. Now to have that lie down perfectly flat you would need the outside and the inside piece perfectly line up and exactly (to the mm) the same length. With a piece this large there is no effing way that there would not be a couple mm difference here and there. I tried to pin the lining and the outer fabric together while the coat was on my dressmaker doll, and still one side is pulling (or bubbling... or whatever).
I know that because of the high-low, arched hemline, the traditional turning up the hem method would not work, so what could have been done? What I will do when I will make this pattern again. Finish the hemline with a (wide, like at least 5-8 cm wide) bias tape, and ten sew the lining to the upper edge of that.
-The same goes for the sleeves. I will do normally finished sleeve edges and sew the lining to the (inner) upper edge of that.
-Speaking of the sleeves... The sleeveheads are not long enough. First I sewn them in, I had to pull the sleeve (instead of easing it in).
- The hanging loop. There is a 15-20 cm wide lining piece of the "collar" (or more like a high neckline), and the hanging loop is sewn to the bottom of that while the outer and the inner layer is NOT ATTACHED to each other. Can you imagine how it would pull the coat out of shape if anyone would hang the coat with that loop? (According to my friend: not only that, but also the lining would tear as well. Maybe even the outer fabric). I did add the loop but then I sewn that piece down with a couple of stitches to the outer layer at the shoulders and at the middle of the back (just behind the loop), but still, I avoid having to hang up the coat by its hanging loop if I can.
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