notes on relining a coat

Relining a coat seemed daunting. Then I took the old coat lining off the coat, divided it into its constituent pieces, traced and cut out the new pieces and it seemed, if not easy, doable. Then I sat down at the sewing machine and had my ass handed to me. It was not my best idea ever to try such a hard project, without a real pattern, when so out of practice sewing clothes.

Notes:

1. It is very confusing to think about wrong sides and right sides, especially if the lining fabric (raw silk) looks the same from both sides. Sorting out how to sew the lining to the coat so that the insides would all be inside took some mind-bending.

2. Raw silk is a pain in the ass. It has a very loose weave and so the edges (where one sews) shred easily. It'd be a good idea to do a zig-zag stitch around the edge of every piece individually.

3. I found sewing the lining sleeve-ends to the coat sleeve-ends completely unvisualizable. After sewing them together wrong, in two different ways, I finally pinned them together how they would logically have to be in the end and somehow led the way. I thought they should be sewn together one inside the other. Not so: they come together like they're shaking hands, and at the last inch the end of the lining sleeve is flipped back on itself. Would have been nice to have taken a picture of this before taking the coat apart. The sleeves turned out okay though.



4. Pockets. Also confusing. Another good subject for a picture pre-deconstruction. These turned out ok--the lower pockets (not pictured) had some problems, but are invisible and functional. They were the first things I sewed onto the coat. Turns out it is best to have the leather on the bottom and the lining on top because the leather stretched out under the sewing machine foot when it was on top. However, sewing w/ the leather on the bottom makes it impossible to see the holes where the old sewing lines went, which may have been a source of some of my other problems (e.g. lining pieces too small). Maybe the solution is a walking foot? The upper pockets were very very confusing, but I eventually sorted them out. Happily--they are also functional and largely invisible. I think more practice w/ pockets would have solved most of my problems here. I tried to do some internet research on pockets, but found the explanations all useless (e.g. "insert the pockets and sew") or incomprehensible.



5. Darts. Making darts where the edges of the coat still need to line up is weird. I guess it produces a curve? Which is a strange thing to sew. It, too, was impossible for me to visualize. In the end, it is a matter of forcing and fussing. My two boob-darts turned out fine. The third dart, where the two bottom flaps come together, was not a curvy dart, just a regular straight dart, which turned out fine until it was attached to the coat. This leads me to #6.

6. I'm pretty sure I did the bottom of the coat wrong. I have no idea how to fix it. There was too much fabric in some places and not enough in others. Since the end of the dart (already a weak point) was one end of the gap in the seam through which I turned the coat inside-out and back several times (due mainly to the sleeves), it is already starting to tear.


7. For some reason, maybe because I (unintentionally) used different seam allowances than the coatmakers did, I ended up with not enough fabric at the top. I fudged it, b/c fixing it would entail starting from scratch. However (especially given the loose weave of the fabric), I fear this will tear, especially given tension from the screwed up bottom. This was one of the last sections I sewed (not counting pockets and sleeves). I think it would have been better to start with the top, since it is so finicky.


8. I chose thread that matched the color of my lining. This was a mistake. A. It made it harder to see the stitches for ripping out wrong seams. B. On the few places where the stitching shows through on the coat, well, it definitely shows through. I think that's a bad idea unless you're going to have contrast stitching everywhere AND you're good enough w/ your machine that the stitches look beautiful. Neither true for me. Happily, those places are few.

9. Good job, me, for remembering to switch to a heavy-weight needle when I started sewing the lining to the coat.

10. In the end, it is good enough, at least until it starts tearing. The color definitely excitens up the coat and the silk will make it warmer. The weird bits are all on the inside, in the back, and not visible when worn. Now, I want to start sewing more clothes from patterns. Ideally, the next time I have to replace this lining, I'll be a whiz at pockets, sleeves, raw silk, leather, and weird coat-flap darts. (Since I probably will have to replace the lining at some point, I wanted detailed notes, which is the main purpose of this blog post.)

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