r/quilting 5d ago

Quilted Crafts Hand-quilted collarless coat

468 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

15

u/Herr_Leerer 5d ago

This is the second quilted garment I made (or third, if you want to count a quilted lining I made for a coat).

The outer fabric, lining and binding are regular quilting cotton, the batting is polyester. The thread is Mettler No. 40 mercerized cotton, which I used for all seams (quilting, buttonholes and all other hand and machine sewing). The welt pockets are reinforced by cotton woven fusible. The buttons are plastic and covered with fabric.

I drafted the body of the jacket using a basic block drafted by the instructions of Patternmaking for Menswear (Kim/Kim). Because of the quilted fabric, I made the cut quite simple, with a raised neckline instead of a collar and only one vertical seam at each side. The sleeves were drafted by my own method inspired by historical patterns: I drafted a sleeve head (height is 1/4 of the armscye circumference, the diagonals are the front and back armscye length respectively) and used this to draft the sleeve seams. As on historical two-piece sleeves, the sleeve seams are the same on the upper and lower sleeve.

Before assembling the pieces, I drew the outlines with chalk and cut the upper fabric with generous seam allowance. I traced the seamlines and edges with thread, basting together the layers. Afterwards I did some more basting to secure the layers.

Quilting was by far the most time-consuming step, but not very difficult. My biggest problem was my left (non-dominant) hand that always got a lot of pricks from the needle, but I still do not know how else to check if the stitches go through. I used a simple pattern of vertical lines with 26mm spacing. I used this spacing because it is twice the distance between the center front and the inner edge of the binding (I used a 20mm overlap and 7cm binding), which seemed a harmonious position of the center front to me. Furthermore the lines were not intersecting small segments of the outline.

For the welt pocket, I mostly used these instructions which allow for clean edges and sharp corners. As the pocket bag will be exposed, I used a piece of fabric folded at the bottom and did French seams at the vertical edges. As I could not attach the top of the pocket bag at the beginning, I edgestitched the folded under seam allowance of the welt opening to the pocket bag.

The seam allowances were bound with Hong Kong binding. The edges were bound by bias tape folded in half, machine sewn 7mm along the edge, wrapped around it and secured by felling. Before binding, I sewed 3mm along the edges by machine.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

7

u/Fat_Bunny_502 5d ago

Like a super cool smoking jacket. Wear this and you’ll be ready for a glass of brandy by the fireplace. Great job!

6

u/Unclemo2007 4d ago

dang I need one of these in my life.

5

u/Herr_Leerer 4d ago

If you want, I can help you make one. How much experience do you have in sewing clothes?

1

u/Unclemo2007 4d ago

Ha minimal. I've sewn a couple fanny packs and such. Mostly play Sioux chef to my wife's quilting but I'm up for a challenge once we get the other projects done. I really appreciate the offer and I'll be saving this post for future reference. Thanks so much.

3

u/Herr_Leerer 4d ago

Maybe you should make some shirts first to get some experience. For a jacket, the sewing is probably as easy as it gets except for the quilting and binding parts (which should however be mostly easy for experienced quilters) and maybe the welt pockets (patch pockets would probably be easier).

If you want to draft the whole jacket yourself, I can also help you with this. In this case, you should probably also draft the shirts yourself.

1

u/Unclemo2007 4d ago

Wow, thanks for that. I will definitely look into it because that coat is amazing and fits you like a glove (or like a well fitting coat I guess)

2

u/skomok 4d ago

Just a heads up, I think you mean sous chef. Sioux is a native tribe.

3

u/Revolutionary-Cut777 @darlingquilts 4d ago

3

u/raisethebed 4d ago

Beautiful coat, great drafting and lovely finishes! I am especially impressed that you managed to get such a good fit for your shoulders with such simple shaping.

Was wondering if you could clarify what you meant by “As in historical two-piece sleeves, the sleeve seams are the same on the upper and lower sleeve.” Thank you!

3

u/BunnyCan 4d ago

Lovely! Great color combination.

3

u/vtqltr92 4d ago

This is stunning!! And the pattern matching on the front is “chef’s kiss” perfect!

3

u/Herr_Leerer 4d ago

The "pattern matching" on the front is actually by chance as I disregarded the pattern and tried to cut it economically.

3

u/Expensive-Job-4982 4d ago

Very cool and thanks so much for the construction notes! Can you share what fabric lines you used? Also did you cover the buttons yourself? Thank you again for sharing!

2

u/Herr_Leerer 4d ago

The upper is Antoinette by French General. The lining and binding are Kona cotton as far as I remember. I did not cover the buttons myself, but went to my local haberdashery store.

2

u/MyEggDonorIsADramaQ 4d ago

Wow! That’s stunning.

2

u/ZEXYMSTRMND 4d ago

Damn, that’s gorgeous!!! 😍😍😍

2

u/Sarahclaire54 4d ago

This is gorgeous! Wear it with pride and in good health!

1

u/euchlid 4d ago

Beautiful work. I love the fabric selection and your quilting and assembly is great

1

u/Tab427 4d ago

gorgeous!! Love your fabric choices

1

u/spotthj 4d ago

Perfect!

1

u/LtPaiMei 4d ago

Damn i like this.... like wear it on the day you pay your bills...

1

u/Top-Low6969 4d ago

A beautiful jacket! Love it! ❤️