Another Coat?

It's true! My next current project is another coat, but this one is proving to be pretty easy. I'm making Amy Butler's Rainy Day coat, and I'm making it for Laura. She's young, she's hip, she's trendy conservative. I thought she might opt for a funky laminate print, but no. She chose black. A high end, raincoating fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics, but black.

She's applying to graduate schools, and everywhere she's applying is in a much colder climate than she currently lives in, so I decided to add some warmth to this raincoat by quilting the body lining with this:

I've done a bit of machine quilting in the past, and this really isn't difficult. There are a couple of ways to go about it. The easiest way is to simply pre-quilt your fabric before you cut it out, but where is the fun in that? No, I cut out my lining pieces, and then proceeded to quilt them.

Some tips. You want to have your batting a bit larger than your pattern piece because it tends to draw up just a bit as you quilt. I'm only using batting and the lining without a third layer, as the edge of the lining is folded into the hem. Then there are the darts, front and back. I didn't want the extra bulk from stitching the darts in the batting, so I just cut them out and "sutured" them together. Like this:

This keeps the 3 dimensionality effect caused by the darts, but eliminates any bulk. Then I marked my quilting lines, and "basted" the pieces together with quilter's safety pins. These little pins are purposely bent to make them easy to use. To mark the fabric, I used a 24" long quilter's ruler, and marked diagonal lines every 2" using a chalk pen. I'm not sure the exact name, but it's like a little pen, with a chalk compartment and a little wheel on the bottom where the chalk comes out.

Are you just dying to see the lining fabric? Here it is, a Joel Dewberry home dec fabric from fabric.com that is a wonderful weight 100% cotton.

Make sure you mark before you pin, or it can be a real nuisance. Because this is lining, and will only be seen in limited amounts, I didn't obsess over the distortion caused from the darts, or the mistakes that I made. Especially the line that was marked 3" apart. Egads! Doing the machine quilting can become kind of zen like as I just made my way over the fabric, stopping just into the seam allowance (which was marked). I want to be able to trim away the batting easily in the SA.

Another cool tool I used was some quilter's gloves that have rubberized tips that help you guide your fabric. It's amazing how slick cotton can feel as you try to manuver it. (Ignore the dirty fingertips, please.) I think rubber gloves might work just as well. And almost forgot to mention, but if you have one, a walking foot makes this job so easy, and really does minimize the drawing up and "crawling" that one fabric can do over another one.

Tomorrow I plan to cut out the outside raincoating fabric, and could possibly have it finished by Monday or Tuesday! I'll be seeing her over the Thanksgiving holiday, so it would be great to deliver it in person.