Coat - in progress

I thought I'd post some photos of the handwork that I've done on the interior of the coat before I put the lining in and it disappears forever!

The plaid-like fabric that you see in the first three pictures is horsehair interfacing. It's not actually made of horsehair -- I think that this type of fabric was originally make of horsehair and that's where it get it's moniker from. It's a heavy, loosely-woven, rough fabric which is used here to add more form, stiffness and structure to the jacket.

I've attached it to the wool of the jacket by "pad-stitching." The herringbone pattern of stitching is only visible on the horsehair side because when the needle goes through to the wool side it just barely snags some fibers on the first layer of wool -- it doesn't go all the way through.

The other hand done stitch I've done here is the catch stitch which can be seen on the twill tape (the white strips) and on the seams. It's the one that looks like an "X" or a "V," depending. This stitch is used to hold everything down so that things don't shift around when the wearer moves.

The last photo is a sample of how the piping will look. I'm adding this shiny black rattail cord on top of all the seams on the outside of the jacket. Here you can see it on the centerback seam. It'll also go in the princess seams (you can see those on the right and left of the black rattail cord.) It looks like piping because it nestles into the dip of the seam, but it's called "couching" because the cord is not incased within the seam like piping, it's topical instead.

Wow. That was wordy. Hope it was educational!