I thought I’d share some details regarding the collar construction of this coat.  The picture above shows how one cuts fur – with a very sharp blade.  My furrier gave me two, and it’s amazing how nicely they cut.  They also dull very quickly.  I’ve used one on just my little bits of collar and cuff and it’s lost it’s extra sharp edge.

Here’s the wrong and right side of the pelt I chose to use for one of the cuffs.  I wanted my cuffs to be about 3” wide, so I’ve trimmed the pelts in order to get all the spots and not so much of the brown back fur.

As mentioned in a previous post, there are no seam allowances when working with fur, so you have to create them with twill tape.  I used selvedge from medium-weight muslin.

The trick is to keep all the fur away from the edge of the pelt so that it will lie free from the seam.  A zigzag stitch is perfect, as it catches the edge of the pelt and tape and can also lie relatively flat when opened or stitched to the garment.

After stitching the fur to the undercollar, I really needed to understitch it.  So I used a bold overcast stitch to keep the twill tape in place.

Here is the undercollar with the fur fully attached.  You can see the twill tape edging, but I’m not really concerned about it since the fur is long and will cover this up.  I’m also not too worried about it because I can see the about 1/8” of the twill tape where my furrier attached the fur collar to my leather jacket.  All that matters is that it’s secure and not visible through the fur.

I decided to attach the fur directly to the sleeves for the cuff as this would eliminated a lot of fabric bulk.  And I wanted the fur to be secure, not moving around.  I would probably have to tack a lined fur cuff to the sleeve to keep it in place, so why bother with the extra work of lining it?  Simple and effective is good in my sewing books.

I measured the width of the pelt between the muslin strips and marked the corresponding measurement (3 1/4”) from the cuff.  Then I carefully pinned the muslin strip to the sleeve, making sure that all the fur is away from the seamline.  I wanted the muslin strip on the bottom of the cuff to actually turn to the inside, as I intend to make the lining flush with the sleeve edge.

Then I turned the cuff down, folded the remaining muslin strip over the sleeve bottom, and securely stitched it into place on the inside of the sleeve.

Et voilà!

Now all that’s left is the hem and the lining, which still has not arrived. *Sigh* However, I shall finish up the outer shell for this and go onto something simple for a palate cleanser!

Whew!  The collar and front facings are attached.  I’m pleased with it!  It’s not as spotty as I’d like, but I intend to make the spots “thicker” on the cuffs, which I’m hoping will make them all stand out a bit.  And the pattern is perfectly matched down the centre front.  Yay!

Now on to the cuffs….

I finally got up the courage to try cutting into the fur.

There’s a lot of pelts in my piece, and some are really ratty and falling apart, so I used them to get used to the techniques for sewing fur.  It also gave me the chance to play with the collar pattern to determine what works best.

The first thing I did was remove the cotton twill tape that was blindstitched to the hemline of the fur.  Remember I’m working with the bottom 12” of a coat that’s been restyled.  When I checked my mink, the lining is actually handstitched to twill tape so that it’s flush with the edge of the pelts at the hem.

You can also see the tiny overcast-type stitches on the wrong side of the fur.  Pelts are “let out” to length them or to make them wider and therefore get more area out of a single pelt.  Seams are also done in the same way, in effect eliminating all allowances – exactly like a butted seam.  So I trimmed all the seam allowances on the collar pattern piece.

The seam “allowances” are twill tape zigzagged to the edge of the fur.  The fox collar on my leather jacket is attached to the leather using this technique.

One other thing:  sewing fur is like having a cat constantly rubbing itself against your legs – fine hairs are everywhere and stick to everything.