Clare Coat Outer Construction

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The outside is DONE!!!  That went by so quickly, albeit with a LOT of pressing.  I am so excited with how this coat is turning out.  (Yes that is a water on the interfacing from my sputtering cheap goodwill iron).

After the marathon interfacing session, I cut out my lining and began construction!!  By the time I was done cutting and interfacing, all fear had dissipated and I was ready to dive in.  (Look at all of these pieces.)

Of course, the first thing I needed to was make darts and that meant pressing.  I have never pressed so much in my entire life.  So yes, my cheap iron spatters but don't they all?  I have yet to hear of an iron  under $200 that doesn't spatter.  Suggestions welcome.  Well as much as I resisted turning my work table into a pressing zone, I can't argue with the results.

Before pressing

After pressing

You just can't argue with the results.  I steamed and pressed with the iron on the wrong side, and then pressed with a clapper on the right side.  I used a silk organza pressing cloth.  The results were really quite good overall with one notable exception:

I overpressed the first seam.  There's now a wrinkle in my wool.  I'm kind of bummed out, but hoping that I can steam it out later.  Advice welcome.

At any rate, the outside took about two days to complete.  Tomorrow I will put together the lining and hopefully bag the coat.  I did some cool detail work on topstitching along the tops of the sleeves but I cannot seem to get my bar tacks consistent.

Look at that amazingly even topstitching

Can you see these?  Not one of them is consistent with the others or even correct.

Seriously, I have a really nice machine.  It just does not ever want to do two bar tacks in a row.  The test one is always perfect.  The second one gets caught.  The third just goes up and down.  By the fourth I am just swearing at the world.  It's worse than when my blood sugar drops.  I can't figure it out.  I'm mad.  I hate everything.  I have to leave my sewing room for a while.  I fucking hate bar tacks.  They're just the absolute worst.

Even now, I need to get back to a good ending of this post.  My coat is looking spectacular and the bar tack fiasco was hours ago, but I get into this space and it is just so challenging to get out.  So here are pretty pictures of my coat.  

Who will even notice the bar tacks?  If I see someone staring at my bar tacks when I'm wearing this coat, I'm just going start yelling and make everything really awkward.  That works, right?  Sure it does.  Does anyone else have issues with bar tacks? I can't be the only one.