| My Sinking Coat |
| 17th December, 2002, (8pm), Tracie told me that shipping is looking very iffy for tommorow. Carla is having problems running the decorative outline on the collar. She is trying a couple different things but is worried she won't have it worked out before tomorrow afternoon. Tracie told me she doesn't want to push her any faster than she already is, since this is her first BIG project light this she has done and she would normally take 3 to 4 weeks to get it all worked out but she has been so nice to get it done in only 2 weeks, Tracie can't push her any faster. I quite understand, and I don't expect anyone to jump through hoops for me, especially as quickly as they both have already been working for me. |
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| 18 December 2002,(Morning) Carla called Tracie this morning and had the test collar complete, so Tracie went over to inspect it, and gave Carla the go ahead with my collar, and that should be complete sometime this afternoon. Tracie told me the test collar looks good but now that she has the hang of it she thinks mine will be 100% better than her's since Carla did some tweaking to the design and she figured out what she needed to do for the edge stitching and has had some good practice runs. Hopefully she can get the collar to Tracie by noon so she can insert it into the coat. Tracie needs to do some final tweeking to the coat this morning and to add the cuffs and hand stitch them down so they don't flop around when wearing the coat. 18 December, 2002, (afternoon) Tracie just picked up my collar and it looks wonderful. Tracie doesn't plan on having it done in the next two hours to catch shipping it out tonight. Tracie has to remove the jump stitches from the edge embroidery, line the collar then set it and stitch in the lining of the coat to the neck and sleeves. She plans to ship the coat first thing tommorow morning. |
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| 18th December 2002, (4pm) Here is a picture of the cuffs and collar ready to go onto the coat. Tracie just finished stitching in the lining and turning them and ironing them flat, now all she has left to do is to add them to the coat. Afterward she just has to add the decorative seams just under the arm. Tracie also told me that she used all but just a small swatch of the seven yards of fabric I purchased for her to use to create the coat. So talk about lucky! Tracie told me she already has someone interested in purchasing the test coat! |
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| 19th December 2002, (1:45 am) Tracie is 75% done with the coat. She doesn't know if she will be able to attach the decorative seam trim on the side seam under the arm. She can't quite get the fabric under the presser foot to start the line since it is in the armhole and she is not confinent it will lay properly. The coat already weighs a ton, and Tracie has yet to attach the sleeves. She tells me the coat is riveling the Jump dress weight wise and probably weighs more. The seams are a pain in the behind for Tracie, and are bulky like she thought they would be, due to the wool being thicker than the suit weight wool used for the Peterman. |
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| 19th December 2002, (2pm) Tracie is having some serious problems with the decorative stitching down the center of the coat. She has been trying since early this morning to get it worked out but she has already broken seven needles so she has decided to add a double stitch to the edge and leave it like that as the machine just can't get through the thickness of an additional strip added on top of the coat. |
| It still looks similar just not as many decorative stitches. It was triple thick when Tracie added the stip on top of the coat, and the machine she is using just couldn't take it. All that remains to complete the coat is to hem the bottom and the sleeves and stitch the neckline down, but Tracie is running into the same problem with the thickness of the fabric breaking needles in this area too and she can't just leave it unstitched or the lining will shift up at the neck, and would probably drive me crazy. |
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| 20th December 2002, Tracie told me now all the decorative seams have been sewn onto the coat, with the exception of the two down the front middle edge where the coat opens. The fabric was just too darn thick for the machine to handle when she tried to add the strip to it since it was already double thick to begin with when she added the strip on top it made it that much thicker and the machine just couldn't get over it so she did a decorative stitch down the center front edge and left it like that with the strip. There is now no doubt that the coat will be warm! |
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