Striped Duster - Fabricista Post
Have you ever run out to buy a pattern with the intention to make it right away, but then you get side tracked and days become weeks that become months? Well, that is what happened with early fall pattern, Simplicity 8177. I purchased this pattern this summer with plans to make it right away for the fall, because I love dusters. Whelp, that didn't happen, but I did finally sew it up this week. Even though I'm a season behind, I'm calling this a win, because it didn't get pushed back into next year.
I originally selected a brown and orange tweed wool suiting for this project (here), but then this navy and cream striped suiting (here) arrived and I quickly switched to it. I love, Love, LOVE stripes, my stash proves it. What I always forget when buying striped fabric is the added work of matching stripes when sewing. LOL. It is not difficult but it does take time. Sadly time is what I was short on due to some delays with FedEx (not Fabric Mart's fault). The stripes don't line up as nicely as I would like in a few places, but I have a finished coat to show you!
I hemmed the sleeve lining and sleeve separately and then hand stitched the lining to the stitch line of the jacket I had planned on using the same method to finish the hem of the coat but somehow my lining was much shorter than the jacket. I'm not sure how that happened, maybe I was sleepy when I cut the lining. I had a bit of trouble with the vent and the lining. This led me to run out and buy double fold bias tape to enclose the raw edge of the hem. I simply did a narrow hem on the lining fabric.
The vent of the coat was no issue but I wasn't sure how to work the lining into the vent. So I sort of made this part up. I sewed the vent of the duster as instructed and then simply folded back the vent on both side of the lining. It doesn't show but I know this is not the correct way. I will be researching a proper way for the future, but for this project I made do.