Magnum Opus: Pirate Coat Update

I worked on the pirate coat all day yesterday. Literally. I had a nice dinner planned, and was resisting even dragging myself away from it for that, so the Dread Reverend suggested we order pizza and wings. He so rocks.

I got the coat mostly done. It doesn't technically look much different than last week, just hanging on a hanger, so I didn't take a new picture. Maybe one evening this week I'll model it for a photo shoot. But I got the entire front and neck facing put on; I put the second sleeve in; and I completely fixed the cuffs.

The cuffs in this pattern are really difficult. The first time I made this coat, for the Dread Reverend, I ended up scrapping the suggested cuffs and just making some modified simple cuffs. A friend of mine who also made this coat told me he had trouble with the cuffs as well. The two problems are, the directions make no sense and don't tell you what you actually need to do; and the cuffs are way too huge. Everything else about the coat is very well made, but those cuffs are like a fantasy costume instead of a realistic pirate coat. They are just silly big.

I knew going in that I'd need to modify them. But since I had never completed the cuffs on this pattern before, I didn't know how or how much I would need to modify them without seeing them in their original form. So I made one complete cuff, basting it only, and then once I figured out what it needed, I removed it and modified it. I ended up taking off 2" from each side of each cuff piece (for a total circumference reduction of 4"), and taking 1 1/2" off the height of the cuff. I had already taken 3" off the bottom of the sleeve to fit me, which also reduce the width somewhat, since the sleeves flared out at the bottom (for some stupid reason). After taking another 2" off the width of the sleeve, everything fit together great.

And it was perfect. The cuffs looked much better this way. So I put both cuffs together, but did not attach them - because I have to have them unattached until after I finish the embroidery, so I am not embroidering through both layers, and the underside of the stitching will be hidden inside the cuff.

The only other thing I didn't finish on the coat was the bottom hem. That's a pretty simple thing which can be done any time, but which is going to take awhile (it's many yards of just straight stitching a hem), so I left it for later.

Now comes the embroidery - and with the ideas I've been having and the brief experimenting I've been doing, if I pull this off, and do what I want to do, the way I want to do it, this thing is going to be a work of art. It's going to be my embroidery magnum opus. Which is pretty ambitious considering I haven't really done all that much embroidery in the past - I've started a few small projects, only one of which I ever actually finished. It's going to be amazing. It's a lot of embroidery. I'm only mildly intimidated. (Okay, maybe a little beyond mildly). But I'm going to forge ahead and go for it.

I decided (quite wisely, it turns out) to do practice embroidery before I start on the actual coat, using some leftover scraps of the fabric. I'm starting out trying rayon embroidery floss, because it's satiny with just a tiny bit of shine, which I thought would look nice. Here's a picture, more or less - it was very difficult to get a good picture this morning, due to bad lighting ... future pictures will probably have to be taken outdoors with natural light to look like anything.

I began with 3 strands (the part labeled A), but it seemed too bulky and was hard to keep neat ... it just looked kind of sloppy. Then I tried just one strand, outlining the design in regular split stitch (part B), but that wasn't doing anything for me either. (It looks far neater in this picture than it looks in real life).

My next experiment was outlining the design in split stitch, then going back over that line with a tiny satin stitch (C). I liked that better, but decided it was a little too tiny, delicate and tedious. I'd been having an idea of doing a sort of couching over a piece of string of some type, to give nice raised edges to the designs. So I tried that next, over a piece of sock yarn (D).

That looked pretty awesome - although for the actual coat I'll use black yarn. This just happened to be something I had on hand to experiment with.

And if I decide to do that over most of the design, it may well take me the rest of my life. Ah well. It'll be worth it.

One thing I know for a fact I have to do is find some better lighting to work on this. One of the reasons even the single strand embroidery was getting sloppy is because I couldn't really see very well ... black floss on black material, indoors at night, with nothing but a regular table lamp for light - no freaking way that will work for this entire project. But I'm sure we can rig up some better lighting for me.

The other issue with the practice pieces is that I just drew some quick designs out freehand, with a white pencil which desperately needed sharpened. So the designs weren't neat or clear at all. But that's okay for just practice. When I go to transfer the real embroidery patterns to the coat, I'll be much more careful. Saturday when I was out I found some transfer paper in white and yellow, for dark colored fabric. When I go to transfer the actual patterns, I'll make sure I have clean, clear drawings, then trace them onto the coat with the transfer paper, and I'll be able to do a much better job embroidering them.

And I gotta tell you ... when I accomplish those two things (better lighting and a clean pattern to work from), this is going to go extremely well.

I can't wait to get it done and wear it!! But it's going to be a long time before that happens. I'm seriously wondering if I'll even be able to get it done by Pennsic in August, much less the first event in May. But I'll have to decide early, because once I start on the embroidery on the main coat, I won't be able to wear it till it's done ... I can't wear it around with half-done embroidery around the skirts. It'll be all or nothing.

I'm going to do the cuffs first, so I can attach them and be done with them. Next I'll do the buttons and loops, and I'll be embroidering something decorative up both sides of the facing, around the buttons and loops, and across the back of the neck. I don't know what yet, but that will be Phase 2.

When I finish those two sections, technically I could wear it as is, since that part of the embroidery will be done. The next phase will be moving on to the voluminous skirts - that part will take a very long time, and that's the part I won't be able to stop in the middle of to wear the coat. So I'll have to see how much time I still have when I finish the cuff and facings, and whether to start the skirts, or leave it alone until after this year's events. Knowing me I'll plow ahead and try to finish the whole thing before wearing it anywhere. Maybe, if I plan well, I can do the embroidery in phases which will allow me to still wear it when only part of it is done. Well ... it's something to consider, anyway.

The embroidery itself seems to go fairly quickly, despite it's tiny size, once started. But it's kind of deceptive ... each tiny motify may go fairly quickly, but when there are so many of them over such a large area, there's no way around it taking a very long time.

One of my biggest challenges right now is choosing the actual patterns I'll be using. I have a bunch of ideas, stuff I found in books or online. Now it's down to designing the actual patterns, modifying the patterns I've decided to use to fit the space I'm working in, and making clear copies in the proper size to trace onto the fabric. That, too, is going to take awhile.

Needless to say, the log cabin blanket didn't get finished this weekend. And I'm so close ... I'm on the fourth border, and have about 4 rows of that done. It's going to be hard to tear myself away from the pirate coat now to finish it, but it's so close, I can't abandon it now!

Unfortunately I may not get to work on either tonight ... since I fluffed off the whole weekend on my fiber obsession, I didn't get anything else done I should have. I have a tax appointment Thursday to prepare for (all my tax papers are stuffed randomly in a big tote bag ... I don't think the tax lady would be very happy with me if that's what I hand her), laundry to do, and a pig-sty of a house to clean up. I hate when mundania interferes with my creative endeavors.