Well, here it is!  Finally finished and modeled for the world to see!

I think she’s pleased!  I cut this pattern one full size bigger than her measurements dictated as I want her to wear it for a couple of years before I have to make another one.  I must say, this coat was a LOT of work.  Sometimes I get impatient for the finish line, but that always makes for regrets, so when I started to get impatient, I’d do something else.  Five or ten minutes here or there took care of the seemingly endless hand sewing in this pattern.

But the hand sewing was my choice, and is not suggested in the instructions.  The hidden button closure was a bit intense – you can read about it in a previous post – and required topstitching on the outside to hold the facing in place.  I wanted the stitching to be as invisible as possible, so I did it by hand.

This coat was a bit labour intesive.  I underlined the bodice with silk organza and used a light-weight horsehair interfacing on the facings, shoulders, armscyes, sleeve cuffs and hem.  I originally thought I’d just use a fusible wool interfacing, but IT WOULD NOT FUSE TO THE TWEED.  Yup.  Go figure.  Then I thought I’d fuse it to the underlining.  Nope.  So that made me wonder if the fusible glue of interfacing deteriorates with age. I was surprised it wouldn’t fuse to the organza, although I wasn’t surprised about the tweed.  Have you ever had this problem?

Anways, here’s some more pictures of the coat for your entertainment!

You can see in the shoulders here that I’ve cut the coat a bit big for her to grow into.

And the ties are wonderful – although the difference in length once they’re tied is slightly annoying to the perfectionist in me.

And the best part?  Fell-stitching this wonderful label into the coat.

Are you superstitious in your sewing?  If you have labels, do you sew them in as you go along à la prêt-à-porter, or do you hand sew them in after the garment is completed à la couture?  I must confess, I follow the couture rule.  I am not a superstitious person by anybody’s stretch of the imagination, but there’s just a special something about hand-sewing your labels in once a garment is completed. (And what if some disaster befell the project prior to completion just because I did sew in the label early?!?)