I THINK IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR A POST...

When I was growing up a phrase that I often heard was - "I feel like I've been run through the mill". Don't know if you've every heard that one, but what it means is "I've had a hard time or have been through something very trying". My Lady Gray coat has "run me through the mill"; most of it being totally mental.

My last post ended with me basting sew-in interfacing to my jacket front, trying to get to the part where I pad stitched the lapel area of the coat. Before I finished stitching one section of the coat front I decided that this was not going to work for me because try as I might, my stitching showed through the right side of the fabric. After removing those stitches I decided to go ahead and use fusible interfacing instead. Mind you, by this time I've pre-shrunk two different types of interfacing at two separate times. After carefully fusing one of the front sections I noticed that even though I had used a shoe on the iron and a pressing cloth I ended up with iron prints on the right side of the fabric. Thank goodness the pattern called for an excessive amount yardage; I had enough of it left over to cut another single front section.

After much contemplation I decided to fuse the interfacing to a batise (sheer mist) underlining and then attach that to each pattern section. This did add some body to my light weight wool flannel shell fabric, which is a good thing. Of course, decided to try my hand at bound buttonholes. Figured I might as well seeing that I'd already been "run through the mill" with this thing. So last night and tonight I practiced making Spanish Snap (Roberta Carr's Couture Sewing DVD), and window pane bound buttonholes, (Marta Alto's Jackets for Real People - Tailoring Made Easy DVD). Had to remind myself NOT TO FRET, because these were only for practice, and if it didn't work out - I could always use a regular old buttonhole.

The practice sessions went pretty good. I really liked both types but decided to go with the bound buttonhole. Here are pictures of both.

First the Spanish Snap:
and the the Window Pane Bound:



and finally the one I installed on the coat front:

The coat will have two buttonholes, but one is concealed and a regular buttonhole will do just fine there. Wow! I really never thought I would even attempt bound buttonholes. I guess I should never say never, because this really wasn't that hard at all. I'm already far behind the sew along schedule so giving up two nights for practice didn't slow the pace any more. I really thought I'd get to tape the lapel roll line and start pad stitching the lapel tonight, but that didn't happen ( I'll start pad stitching tomorrow night). I'll be using the Roberta Carr DVD to help me with the pad stitching. I'm so very glad that I had these resources in my library in addition to my books (which I've about worn the pages out of). Now that I've completed the buttonholes I can really understand why they are put in so early in the construction process.

MORAL: I'm glad I stretched and learned something new.....