If you've ever sewn garments, you may be able to relate to what happened to me recently while attempting to sew a raincoat for my granddaughter. My daughter had called me months earlier and said that Sydney would love it if I would make her a raincoat. While I was at the fabric store, I ran across some awesome Amy Butler laminated fabric that would work great for a raincoat. I even bought an Amy Butler pattern for a rain jacket/coat which could be made up in several lengths and I was well on my way. Well, sort of....
The fabric sat in my sewing room for a few months while I tried to figure out how I was going to prevent water from entering the inside of the raincoat where each little stitch made a hole from stitching the seams together. We get some torrential rains here in Florida and the last thing I wanted was for Sydney to wear her new coat and get wet because the seams leaked. I finally did the research on the internet and bought some of this......
I found this product at our local camping/hiking/sports store and it is normally used to seal the seams of tents that have developed leaks. After some experimenting, I came up with a plan that I thought would work for the raincoat. After I sewed each welted seam (think blue jeans seams) I brushed this liquid sealer on the fabric inside of the seam using the brush attached to the glue bottle. It was a little tedious, construction wise, as I would sew several seams and then brush them with the glue and let them dry overnight. And that's how I kept sewing and gluing the entire raincoat, hoping that I was sealing the seams as I went along. I even tested the seams by pouring water over a test seam as I held it over the sink and it worked!
The pattern didn't call for welted seams, but I really liked the professional finish of them, so I used them on the shoulder seams, the back of the two part sleeves, and the side seams down each side of the coat. To make a welt seam, first sew the seams "backwards", with the raw edges out instead of inside the garment.
Next, trim one side close to the seam. Then, take the "longer" side and turn under the raw edge, stitching close to that edge as straight as possible.
And you end up with this! A welt seam! I had to use a Teflon foot to stitch the seams because the plastic coating on the fabric made a regular foot stick and pull against the laminated fabric side.
Whew! Alright, got the sleeves on and the hood and made the lining, too! Three days of sewing, gluing and drying and now Sydney came to visit. I could hardly wait for her to try it on.......ummmmm. "Sydney, this is never going to fit!", I moaned. Yup, even after using her measurements and checking and rechecking the pattern(which happened to be multi-size)......I had made the entire thing too small!!!!!!! Aargh! Apparently this pattern is made for really skinny, skeletal builds. Aw, man! The arms were skin tight, the coat wouldn't even come close to buttoning. Everything was small except the hood!
Back to the drawing board. I remeasured her, and we decided on the size we felt would be a better fit for her. Next, I pulled out the pattern pieces and calculated how much additional fabric I would need to buy, if I could find it, to complete another raincoat. I cut the hood off the raincoat so we could reuse it, and laid out the pattern pieces onto the fabric I had left over from the
first time I cut out the pattern. We loaded into my car and drove back to the fabric store, hoping to find the same fabric.
Eureka! They still had the same fabric and even had the same cotton I had used for the lining. Ok, now we were on a roll. Some $ and an hour later we were back at home, ready to conquer this baby once and for all. I cut it all out, stitched and glued and 2 days later we had a finished raincoat. Hey, I don't usually give up and this was one time I was determined to get it right.
The pattern is so busy, that it's hard to tell where the front seam is. There are covered buttons in the same fabric down the center front.
And I really like these pleated pockets with the flap on top. I reused these from the smaller coat, so, that saved me a considerable amount of time and materials. I also just reused the covered buttons, too.
The hood was also reused from the smaller coat and I simply reattached it. All in all, I learned a lot from this project. I will definitely measure out the pattern next time I make clothes for someone other than myself to be certain there is enough ease in the pattern to make it fit right. And I won't make a lining until I can get the kids to try on the garment first so I'm not putting more time into something until I'm sure it will fit.
With a little determination and some luck finding the same fabric, the raincoat finally came together and Sydney is very happy wearing it! Aaaaah, glad that one is behind me.
Learned my lesson,
Debbie
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