Hi internet! It’s been a while; sorry about that! First I got sick, then I had exams (and was that irritating person at the back snuffling her way through a three hour exam — I assure you, it was no more fun for me than it was for you), and well that was interesting. And then yesterday got eaten by wonky tax software, and basically things were a large pile of ARRRRG.*
So, I’ve got a week and a half off until my supervisor gets back from holiday and I have a research meeting, and I’m taking a sewing holiday. First up: what should I do with the sleeves on this coat?
Grumpy face and everything!** The sleeves are really irritatingly short.
I thrifted this (on one of those red letter days) a while ago, realizing that the sleeves are about two inches too short, but swayed by the lovely fit, the kick pleat in the back, and the fact that I’m a total sucker for snazzy coats. I thought “I’ll just stick some cuffs on them, and it’ll be fine!” and went on my merry way. Obviously I couldn’t find matching fabric, but I found some white cotton fabric with the same sort of texture, and then experimented with dyeing it with tea to reduce the stark contrast between the coat and the white cuffs. That sort of worked. Well the tea dyeing worked wonderfully (and I’ll post my method if anyone’s interested) but the colour has more of an orange undertone than a grayish undertone.
Coat plus the tea-dyed cotton I was going to use for cuffs. Nice, but doesn't quite work for me.
I realized I’d bought orange pekoe tea*** because it was the cheapest, realized of course orange pekoe would give an orange undertone, and tried again with Earl Gray, but the tone was pretty similar. And then I realized that I’d misconstructed the cuffs, and wouldn’t be able to attach them evenly, and so grumped loudly and left it until now. (I’ve learned from experience that sewing while snarky is not, in any way shape or form, a good idea.)
So I’m thinking about shortening the sleeves to make them proper 3/4 length sleeves rather than just slightly too short sleeves. This avoids the matching issue, and plus I think 3/4 length sleeves look snazzy (witness Gertie’s gorgeous jacket). I’ve rolled up my left sleeve to about where I’m thinking of cropping it:
This feels way more deliberate than the original sleeves.
For kicks, here's how the rolled sleeve looks with my hands in the giant pockets.
But the coat’s about knee length, and I’m not sure if the proportions would work right; all the coats Ive seen with cropped sleeves are around hip length. Also, the buttons seems a little small to me, so I’m going to look for some bigger buttons (the button holes are huge, so it shouldn’t be a problem).
So, do you think this would all work? Where would you crop the sleeves? Do you have a better idea?
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* I have done my taxes by hand since I started working as a young lass, and it has never failed me. The first time I try to wrangle a computer into doing them, thinking that maybe it’d be faster? Took all afternoon, and I gave up and am doing them by hand. I could’ve had them done three times by now, and I’m less than impressed to say the least.
**Oh yes, I got my hair cut in the short window between snuffling and frantic exam writing! Tried another place, and I’m pretty alright with this. I’m still contemplating shaving my head this summer, and this is sort of a halfway step. I’ve been muttering about shaving my head for years, and A. got one of razors you use for it for himself, so now that I’ve got the tools available to me there’s a good chance I’ll stop muttering and actually do it. There’s at least a 50% chance I’ll hate it, but considering there’s a 50% chance I’ll hate just about anything with my hair, that’s hardly a deterrent. And maybe I’ll stop muttering about it if I finally bite the bullet and do it. We shall see.
*** I hate orange pekoe tea, so I don’t quite know why I got it. One of my first summer jobs was working in a bakery of a grocery store, and I started drinking it because it was around and I was thirsty. It still, ten-ish years later, tastes like uncooked pie crust to me.
If you shave your head, I’ll shave mine…
My favorite coat is a black trench coat that’s knee-length with 3/4 length sleeves – gorgeous! I’ll have to photograph it to show you. I think one of the things that helps my coat is the belt – have you tried belting yours? Could look right snazzy and help break up the length.
Yep, I made a belt out of the tea dyed material, but this was getting longwinded and unwieldy (shocking!) so I left it out. I think it’d work better if I had the cuffs to match, but I’ve been pondering looking for a brown, pre-made belt and using that instead. But you think the sleeves work?
And, uh, I’m sort of serious about the head shaving… I mean if you want to too, company’s awesome, but it’s sort of drastic if you’ve got longer hair than I do :p
I think you could totally rock super duper short hair. I’d probably look like Mr. Potato head, but you can totally pull it off.
But what about the sleeves?!
Also, you totally wouldn’t look like Mister Potato head– you don’t have a bowler hat or a detachable schnozz.
I do so have a bowler hat!
And my vote’s on 3/4 sleeves.
Hah, awesome. I should’ve known you’d have a bowler hat!
I like the cropped sleeves, actually they look a *lot* better than the too-short sleeves, so other than removing the big pockets and using that material to add cuffs to the exhisting sleeves to lengthen them I can’t think of a better route for this. The short hair looks great too, (sigh) not a look I can pull off, sadly having supefine whispy hair. Let us know how the coat turns out, yes?. ps maybe onion skins will give a better colour than tea?
Onion skins! I’ve heard of that, but I’m not sure how to do it. I suspect, given the colour of onions, that they’re still be a yellow-orange undertone rather than a greyish one.
The pockets are going nowhere! I love huge pockets on coats, and I’ve got way too many things to stash in them to think about taking them of. I will definitely post the end result
And thanks for the hair compliment! I have huge fluffy hair that some people’d probably really want, but it gets heavy and really hot in the summer time, so I keep it short enough to not bug me.
Okay, what about creating like a ruffled bell sort of sleeve? I wonder if that would either look good, or all sorts of wonky.
I’m getting another sewing machine!! An old Singer.
I have my great (great?) grandma’s Singer. They carried it across the Rockies in an ox-pulled wagon, and my great (great?) grandfather refused to pad the sewing machine before tying it to the wagon, and by the time they arrived there was a huge groove carved into the top where the rope had worn through the wood.
Yes, I have heard that story from both you and your mom
. This one is one of the first electrical ones, in a table, and apparently in good shape. I am developing a type of sewing machine museum for sewing machines from throughout the ages. Without purchasing any. Funny.
Yeah, we only have so many stories, so you’ll hear them a lot
I look forward to seeing what you make with your museum of sewing machines. I’m planning a visit to a washing machine museum soon; should be interesting.
I have two of those now too!
Seriously? I, er, don’t have any…. hint hint.
I suppose actually I have two machines as well, though one in my mom’s garage so I don’t really count it. I inherited my grandma’s treadle Singer, and it needs at least a new belt (easily replaced) but I’m not sure if it’s otherwise functional. It’s one of those “once I’m somewhere permanent (so like ten years from now, minimum) I’ll move it and fix it up” things.
I think ruffles’d drive me as batty as the too-short sleeves. My money’s on all sorts of wonky, my antipathy abotu ruffles aside.
I think you should add to it, Millie, for proportion’s sake. Why not use the regular dye? Are you doing the tea dyeing method because it’s environment friendly?
Laziness, mostly, and the fact that a) I’m not sure if I could find the right colour, b) I live in an apartment, and don’t want to dye in the washing machine, and c) I was curious if the tea dyeing thing would work. And plus I’m a tea drinking machine so if it doesn’t work, then the rest of the box can be put to good use (except I was silly and bought tea I don’t like
)
Yeah, I’m waffly about the proportions — I think I need to pin both sleeves rather than just one and see what happens. But on the flip side, I have lots of long sleeved coats, and no cropped sleeve ones….
I think a good belt in a contrasting color would go a long way towards mitigating concerns you have about a long coat with cropped sleeves. I think you should pin the sleeves and then experiment. And then take photos so we can vote.
Me too, actually. I’m headed to Fabricland in the next couple of days, and I know they have belt kits, so I’ll see if I can find some nice chocolate brown twill to use. Given the awesomeness of the local Fabricland (it’s huuuuuge and super organized, which is nigh on unheard of for fabric stores) I suspect it won’t be hard