Sewing the Robson Trench Coat, part 2

Following up on last week’s Robson progress post, I have a few more bits and pieces I’d like to share before the ~big reveal~. I normally hate dragging these types of projects out over several posts, but I think this coat deserves more than just a single post (plus, I haven’t taken pictures of my newest projects! So consider this filler, ha!).

Last week, I left off with the main body of the coat completed – everything from the collar, to the facing, to the hem. All that was left was the sleeves, the belt and belt loops, and the buttons. Easy enough, yeah?

I WISH. I about killed myself over those dumb ol’ sleeves! Putting them together was easy – even with the added step of trimming/grading the sleeves and adding the bias binding – but setting them in took me close to 2 hours, and there was lots of scream-cussing involved. The hardest part was getting the bias binding on the sleeve seam allowance once everything was set in – mostly because the area was obscenely thick with all those fabric layers, and also because I’m an idiot and I trimmed the seam allowances to super short before putting on the bias binding.

PROTIP: Sew one side of the bias binding on before you trim down those seam allowances. It will give you much more leeway in an area that’s already pretty tight to maneuver around.

I will say that, despite my troubles, those sleeves set in perfectly the first time – and they look beautiful! The drafting on this thing is pretty amazing.

Hemming the sleeves was also kind of tough, because the total circumference of the sleeve was smaller than the circumference by the throat plate. Which means I couldn’t just slide the sleeve over the arm of my sewing machine and go in the round – I had to do some horrible wedging and go VERY VERY slowly. To keep my hem even, I stuck a piece of tape on the arm of my machine (you can barely see it in this picture, if you squint) and used that as a guideline. My hems turned out pretty straight and even – not that you can see it with that busy lace pattern :B

I did come across one problem when sewing the sleeve tabs – the pattern calls for you to sew 3 edges, right sides together, and then turn right side out and press. Well, I tried that…

And, um well, I’m not sure exactly what happened. HAHA. I guess my loop turner just grabbed the lace and not both layers? Anyway, I was able to shove the underlining back inside the lace tube with a knitting needle, but it made me think about how I was going to tackle the belt and belt loops, since they are also sewn the same way.

To make the belt loops, I followed the same procedure as for the Thurlow belt loops. You can see a tutorial on that here (from my Thurlow sew-along!).

For the belt, I folded in 5/8″ along each edge and pressed it.

Then I folded the whole thing in half…

And topstitched along all four sides. This made for a nice, crisp belt – without having to worry about turning a long tube and ending up with that… thing.

Here is my finished belt. As you can see, I made a few changes – I decided to use a buckle instead of tying the belt, as I think it makes the coat look a little more trench-y. It’s just a basic self-covered buckle that I pulled out of my stash, and covered with the navy sateen that I used for underlining (also, the sticky guide in the kit was all dried up, so I used spray-mount on the fabric to get it to stick aaaaand I didn’t go outside to do this, so my sewing room may or may not be covered with spray glue jsyk). I also narrowed the belt by about an inch – I’m not sure exactly how much, I just kept hacking at it until it fit in the buckle. With this in mind, the belt loops were also shortened to accommodate the narrower belt.

With all that done, it was time to add the button holes and buttons! Not much to report on that – I used my button hole cutter to slice through the holes, and I am pleased to report that they are decidedly unhairy. The buttons were sewn on with silk thread, which I first ran through beeswax – I wanted them to stay on that damn coat! I moved the bottom buttons outward slightly, so the coat is more straight than A-line (I just think that suits my figure better!). Oh, and I didn’t bother with the interior buttons – I don’t ever use those things anyway, meh.

As it stands now, the coat is finished! I am so proud of it and I can’t WAIT to show it off 🙂 I even got some super-fancy pictures taken, and damn it looks good.

Here is a sneaky peek because I can’t help myself.

Stay tuned!

Tags: coat, lace, Lace Trench, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, work in progress