Halloween 2011 - Royal Wedding - Uniform details

Only 1 day left until I need these costumes done!! (Wow, I thought I had more time) Of course I somehow messed up my sewing machines tension and am not sure if I can fix it or not, ugh.

To check out the progress of our William and Kate costumes, click on the "William and Kate" label on the side of my blog.

Anyways, on to the details of Hubby's Prince William costume.

I searched everywhere for little gold buttons that would work for the coat front and sleeves. Unfortunately, I needed around 20 matching buttons and could only find 12 or so. So, I ended up buying some silver buttons in the same style and painting them with metallic gold paint.

To make the details on the sleeves of his uniform, I cut out felt (in the shape below) and added white piping.


Next, I hand sewed black and white cording onto the felt in the pattern shown below.

But wait, the details are supposed to be black and yellow (I couldn't find yellow cording at the store) So, out came my favorite art supplies: the puffy paint. I used a paint brush to carefully paint all of the white cording yellow.

Then, I added some of the buttons that I painted gold. Now it's ready to go onto the costume!

I really hope I can get my machine up and running again. I'm not the quickest at hand sewing...

Halloween 2011 - Royal Wedding - Uniform progress 2

After sewing the top part of Hubby's Prince William Halloween costume, I started working on the bottom part. Once that was sewn together and lined, I attached the top and bottom portions of the coat (no pics of that yet though), followed by a lot of hand sewing to get the lining in throughout.

Now that the coat is complete, well as far as the pattern goes, it's time to get to making the details that make it more like Prince William's uniform.

First of all, I cut black fabric to sew at the base of each sleeve. Using that fabric to determine the width, I cut black felt into the shape shown below. There will be one of those felt pieces on each sleeve.

To decorate the felt, I needed white piping and black cording. But, most importantly I needed yellow cording. I went to an insane amount of stores looking for the kind of cording that would be most similar (and least expensive) and ended up buying some from Hobby Lobby. However they only carried it in black and white.

Even though I was 99.9% sure that dye would not take to this cording, I went ahead and bought the white stuff anyways, and a pack of yellow dye.

The yellow color it turned out was perfect for what I needed. But, I still didn't get my hopes up. When I went to rinse the cording out after dying it, all the dye washed down the drain and my cord was stark white again. LOL. So, on to the new method.... painting it. I need to pick up a better yellow paint from the store, mine are too bright.

Halloween 2011 - Royal Wedding - Uniform progress

I've only got a few days left to get Hubby's Prince William (wedding day) Halloween costume done, eek! It'll get done though :)

For Hubby's costume, I'm using the McCall's Costumes pattern M4745 and making views A & D. I read a lot of reviews AFTER purchasing the pattern, and of course most of the reviewers said it was quite complicated. I agree. It actually isn't a difficult sew, but the instructions just aren't so great. So, if you're going to sew this costume, I'd suggest you fold up the directions and just do what makes sense. Oh, and unless you want gathered sleeves, you may want to make adjustments to the pattern beforehand.

This coat pattern is very fitted, so thankfully Hubby was kind enough to try it on for me at different stages of sewing.


It's a little hard to see, but the back of the coat has princess seams:



Checking to make sure the sleeves would still be long enough (I made adjustments to mine after cutting them out, so they weren't gathered)

Before sewing the sleeves on, I added little flap things (see below, what are they called??) on the top of the shoulders like Prince Williams uniform had.

After everything was sewn together for the top portion of the coat (and fit Hubby correctly) it was time to move on to sewing the bottom of the coat!

To check out more of the process of making our Royal Wedding day William and Kate Halloween costumes, click on the label "William and Kate" on the side of my blog. There are lots of details for both costumes, there's still time to make your own!

Completed coat!

My first coat is finally finished! It shouldn't have taken so long, but there were other things with more pressing deadlines.

I used McCalls M5525 pattern, style "B" and absolutely loved the pattern. It was easy to follow (with one exception discussed later), and there are several cute options to make. I'm already imagining the next coat/jacket I'm going to sew with this pattern... however, I do have a Simplicity coat pattern that I may try first.

In case you missed it and are interested, here are links to posts about the earlier stages of this project:
picking the pattern
finding the fabric
starting to sew
back panel & early stages of the infamous vent
lastly, the lining

Here, the lovely Ingrid (dress form) models the coat:
McCalls M5525 style B, front (looks like some of those buttons might to need adjusting... I'll have to see)

Here's the (blurry) back view, on me:
McCalls M5525 style B, back

I must admit, I had some issue with the coat lining... which, luckily is hidden. While sewing in the lining, I had a lot of trouble figuring out the vent, but after re-reading the pattern several times, thought I had it under control.

That was not the case. I think I either cut the lining on the wrong side, or sewed it inside out which caused some troubles. More than likely, this problem was not with the pattern, but with me. I have a habit of sewing things into the wee hours of the night, when I'm not thinking as clearly :)

coat lining in

The coat lining is sewn in now, except the bottom hem. I really like this pattern so far (McCalls M5525). It's very easy to follow (minus my dumb moment on the vent) and goes together well.

McCalls M5525 coat lining

Here it is on the dress form:

McCalls M5525 coat front

McCalls M5525 coat back


But, I have a temporary set back: I ran out of thread. To the fabric store I go!

blue fabric chunks are everywhere!

The fabric I'm using to make McCalls M5525 coat pattern loves to fray. I feel like little blue fabric chunks are taking over my house!

back of coat

I had a little trouble figuring out the vent... so it looks pretty rough in this picture. After struggling with it for awhile, I figured it best to set the project down and look at it later. When I picked it up again, I changed it. It lays a little nicer now, but I won't claim that I "fixed" it. Any tips on making this the right way would be great :) Also... if there's any advice on making button holes I'm all for it. That will be coming up soon, but I'm pretty freaked out that I'll mess it up after all the other work of the coat has been done!

First stitches on coat

So far so good, I think, with making the McCalls M5525 pattern. Currently the coat is much further along than this post. I just haven't uploaded the pictures yet. (I believe I still have to hem the bottom of the coat fabric and lining, and put in the dreaded buttons... all 11 of them)

first stages of sewing coat
This is the wrongside of two front pannels. They are not sewn together... I just layed them out that way.

The pockets were being sewn in at this point. If I ever make another joacket/coat in this pattern, or any other for that matter, I will definately make deeper pockets. These are kind of little for my liking.

Here are some links to my other posts on this topic:
picking the pattern
cutting the fabric

Cutting fabric

If there is one thing I wish I could avoid, it'd be cutting out fabric for patterns. But, somehow it wasn't too bad for the one I'm working on now. (Likely because I was taking study breaks, which probably made it seem like less of a chore)

Here is what's gone on so far with the coat making process:

Step 1 pick out pattern
Done: McCalls M5525

Step 2 pick out material
Done: Navy Gabardine, navy lining, sew-in interfacing (I wanted a contrasting lining, but the selection was not so great, so navy it is)

Step 3 cut out pattern
Done: For some reason I cut this pattern out when I first bought it... three months ago. Weird, I never do that in case I don't make the pattern. I guess I knew I'd try it?

Step 4 cut out fabric
Done

cut out fabric

Next, on to the sewing...

Here are some links to my other posts on this topic:
picking the pattern
first few stitches

mission: first coat

At the top of my "to make" stash of patterns is McCalls pattern for jackets/coats M5525 . (The pictures in this post are all from the McCall's website, click on the "M5525" below each picture and it will take you to their site)

M5525

I absolutely love all of these coats, but decided to try pattern "B" first.

M5525

I was hoping to get brown fabric, like the McCall's picture shows the coat in, but when picking out my fabric they did not have it. So, I got navy blue instead. I chose to use Gabardine, one of the suggested fabrics, and also had to pick up some lining and sew-in interfacing. The fabric store did not have fabrics with the same widths as the pattern called for (a couple inches shorter) which was only a problem when cutting the interfacing.

With all the supplies in hand, I can now start (or attempt...) to make my first coat. I'm not sure how this will go!

Here are some links to my other posts on this topic:
cutting the fabric
first few stitches