Come Ice or Rain or Sleet or Snow...

Note: This post was written on January 19, 2012. We are still without power and I still haven't made any more progress on my coat, but we do have internet, so I haven't perished of boredom yet.

What do you do when there’s 8” of snow on the ground, ¼” of ice on top of that, no power for at least two days because of the ice, and the road is impassable because there are too many fallen trees (even if you could get past the icy road)?

If you’re me, you wrack your brain for things that need to be done and haven’t because you have been too busy playing Skyrim for the last few weeks:

1. Piano practice (but I don’t have a rehearsal until February, so it isn’t urgent)
2. Laundry (but the generator can’t power the washer and the hot water heater)
3. Reading the stack of books I have accumulated in the last few months (but I can’t really focus because trees keep coming down outside and I always have to run to the window and make sure they haven’t hit anything important)
4. Sew my coat (but I couldn’t press any seams open because our iron sucks up a lot of power, apparently)
5. Blog about my coat (but our internet isn’t working, either)

BUT, I do have the option of writing up an offline post and putting it up when our internet eventually comes back. So here we are.

I always like to have music or a movie or TV show running while I’m working (because distracted sewing is the best sewing). Last year, it was Stargate Atlantis (and then Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I think). This year, due to some wonderful Christmas presents I received, it’s The Office (and if I finish that, which I probably will, then Castle). This week’s inspirational quote comes from Dwight Schrute of The Office:

“The best advice you ever gave me was, “Don’t be an idiot.” … Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, ‘Would an idiot do that?’ And if they would, then I do not do that thing.”

I’m pretty sure this is the kind of advice we can all follow.

When I last updated, I believe I left off with the Thinsulate I had ordered to line my coat with. It came super quickly, and I was able to get it cut out without much hassle, although working with the puffiness of the lining posed a slight challenge.

Puff Daddy? Puff Megan? Maybe just Puff.

This is actually a central Thinsulate layer quilted with a layer of thin polyester on either side. When I originally started looking around for lining, I could have gotten just plain Thinsulate, no quilting. But then I realized that it didn’t come in black, and I would either have to get the quilted kind, or buy even more black lining fabric to put between the Thinsulate and the see-through boucle. Since this was already getting to be an expensive hassle, I opted for the not-too-pricey quilted Thinsulate.

The good thing about the quilting is that it will give the insulation a lot of stability, which will hopefully make this a coat that I will be able to wear for a long time. The bad thing is that you can kind of see the quilting, or at least the puffiness of the quilted squares, through the lining pieces they’re sewn into.

The ripples are the puffs.

I’m not too concerned—that’s unavoidable. I’m mostly hoping that it doesn’t show through the boucle, but I think the texture of the fabric, and the fact that it won’t be tautly attached to the insulation the way the brocade is, will make it okay.

The wool boucle fluffed up quite a bit after I washed it, although that didn’t make it any thicker—just a little loftier, I guess. I had a moment before I started cutting out the boucle pieces where I considered actually using the wrong side of the fabric for the outside of the coat. The first fabric I had my sights set on was a beautiful crosshatch, vaguely plaid-ish design. The fabric I ended up with is a definite plaid, but the wrong side of the fabric has a softer look to the design:

Wrong side and right side, for comparison. 

I finally decided to just go ahead and use the right side, because I didn’t want it to look like I was wearing a flannel bathrobe for a coat.

I didn’t make any fitting adjustments to my pattern before cutting, which my old 4-H sewing instructors would probably berate me for. I was too anxious to get started. If anything, I will have to take in some seams since the pattern runs a little large, but I tend to need that room around the bust. My plan is to wait until I have the lining and shell constructed, and then check the fit before I sew them together. I suspect I may need a little extra room for the thicker lining than I would have without it.

I don’t have pictures yet, but so far I’ve finished putting together the outer shell and undercollar, and most of the lining and facing. I still need to put in the lining sleeves, which I’m finding is a huge pain because of the insulation thickness. Most sleeve heads require some degree of gathering the top of the curve so that it hangs nicely, without pulling (if you put it in without the gathers, the fabric would want to stick straight out, which would put a lot more strain on the seam). Gathering that thick insulation, however, is problematic. Even with very long stitches, it’s difficult to pull up the ease (essentially, bunch the fabric along the thread like a curtain on a rod) without breaking the thread.

After doing my ease stitches in one uninterrupted line and having them break when I tried to gather the ease, I then tried doing them in halves: sewing from each bottom edge of the gathered area to the top of the curve, so I only had half as much to gather. That seemed to do the trick.

I still hate putting in sleeves.

I also put together the tie belt and attached the belt carriers/loops to the coat, although if I have to take in the seams I’m just going to be tearing them off again.

Next on the agenda: THE FITTING, or, probably, How I Discovered that I Should Have Made a Muslin.