Neo Pirate Coat?

Sewing is one of my oldest crafts but it's one I don't think I'm very good at. It takes a lot of skill to make a piece of clothing that fits well, looks good, feels nice, and can stand up to some wearing and washing. I really wanted to do a sewing project this week so I got out my box of fabric and went digging for inspiration. What I ended up finding was an unfinished project, I don't even remember what it was for but I had the pieces cut out for a medium sized, black, Neo (Matrix) coat.

It was just some light, probably cotton, fabric but I found enough red fabric (left over from my Dr. Horrible costume) that I could cut out a lining and make a black and red Neo coat with big red pirate cuffs (also in the pattern for a Morpheus style coat). So I set to work, first reading the given instructions even though they don't account for a lining which I was going to have to improvise a little.

Then I laid out my red fabric and put my pieces on it. I realized that I was only going to have enough red fabric if I made the coat shorter. I held the coat up to me (for the first time :p) and it went past my feet by a foot on the floor. I decided to cut my pieces to as long as the fabric would allow and decide on a final hem length later.





Next came assembly, reading the instructions carefully I pinned and sewed a black outer shell and a red inner liner for the front, side front, and back pieces.

Next I pinned the outer shell to the lining and sewed along the outer edge and in the slit in the back.
Turning it inside out I spent the next few hours and used my entire box of pins to pin the seems of the two layers together. Carefully stitching in the dip created by the seem, or as close as I can get, I attached the inside to the outside.

Next was the collar which I sewed together along the entire top and sides, flipped it inside out and pinned the black sides together and sewed. I rolled the red edge of the collar and pinned it to the red lining and sewed very close to the edge. Now the sleeves which I made the decision not to line for simplicity sake, with just one layer I just pinned and sewed the long edges together. Then pinned and sewed the red cuffs and sewed them onto the sleeves.

At this point I really wanted to use the serger I got for Christmas. It was gonna need some set up and I'd been putting it off but I got it out of the box and watched to instructional DVD which showed me how to thread it and I found the process fairly simple. I tested my serger on some scrap fabric before using it to sew the raw edges of my sleeves and their cuffs. Then I pinned and used my regular sewing machine to sew the sleeves in place, pulled the pins, and sewed the seem with the serger.

 The last bit to this jacket was going to be the buttons. I put the jacket on to find my top button hole placement then took it off and marked button holes every 2 inches down the front stopping when I felt it was good. My sewing machine has an automatic button hole feature which I highly recommend, though I think it comes on most modern machines. I put my button into the button foot and sewed button holes one at a time, when they were all done a cut open the button holes. Then I put on my coat and used chalk to mark the under part of the coat through each button hole. I hand sewed a button over each mark. Here is the finished coat!