Gabriella's Day 4 - Create Pockets, Form Skirt, and Attach Skirt

Welcome to Day 4 of the Gabriella's Winter Coat Sew-A-Long!  If you've gotten behind, here is where you can find Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Today we will be creating the pockets, forming the skirt portion of the coat, and attaching the skirt to the bodice. This will be steps 12-19 in the pattern instructions. By the end of today, we should begin to have recognizable coats!

Creating the Pockets

Complete steps 12-15 of the instructions to create your pockets. Pay close attention to the notches that you should have transferred to the front side flounce pieces. These will indicate to you where the pocket should fit and which side of the back skirt flounce they each attach to. When you are sewing the pocket together in step 14, make sure to sew a hair past the pocket seam you made in step 12 so that your pocket lining is completely hidden.

The understitching in step 13 is very important for keeping the pocket lining from sticking out of the pocket openings on the finished coat. Check out this past blog post to learn more about understitching and how to do it. When you go to baste your pocket in step 16, make sure that the lining is completely hidden at the top corner of the pocket opening so that it isn't visible on the finished product.

Forming the Skirt

Once the pockets are ready, you can continue on to steps 16-18 of the pattern instructions. It is very straightforward and quick. Don't forget to do the skirt lining too!

Attaching the Skirt

This is step 19 of the pattern instructions. Some of the seams you need to go over may be rather bulky, particularly the seams around the pockets. I recommend using a "hump jumper" foot on your machine if you have one. This little black button on the side of my presser foot is for this purpose. When the toe of the foot reaches the hump, pause with the needle down, raise the foot, press the little black button, and simultaneously lower the foot. The foot will have paused on top of the hump instead of trying to go up it.



The design really starts coming together once your skirts are attached. I was so excited when I flipped the skirt down and saw how nicely my coat was coming along! You can really tell what it is now.

That’s it for today! Please post a picture like the one above on the Day 4 thread in the Facebook group in order to participate. Check back in tomorrow for Day 5! Note that there has been a change to the schedule and Day 5 is now a catch up day.