McCalls trenchcoat has a main belt across the waist as well as the faux belts near the sleeve hems so a stack of well-finished belt carriers are worth making – if you have the time.

This stage of making the trench drained my energy because I knew that I could finish it fast once I attached and finished the sleeve belts (plural) before sewing on the bagged lining. Sewing on the lining includes hemming and that’s when I can really feel the end of the project near. The last steps are attaching the buttons and making the buttonholes and then the trench would be finished.
But not just yet.

At the beginning of construction, I made up the belt carriers. I didn’t use tape like Steam a seam lite 2 or any fusable hemming tape. The belt carriers worked out without tape but after doing a zipper workshop, I saw how well finish this detailing becomes when you use fusable hemming tape. So I’ve used hemming tape on the coat hook loop at the back of the trench. 

And the sleeve belt carriers were constructed the same way.

The belt will have a buckle – now that I bought a few from Birdsall’s leather, the leather saddlery place at Botany.

A note from Heavenlyprincess:
I just finished up a red wool coat with trench detailing! In fact, it won a state fashion design competition on Saturday. We’ll see how it does at Nationals.
Anyway, here’s a link to the post I wrote about understitching while making this coat.
All the best at National HP!
Webcasts
I’m really loving the webcast Peggy Sagers(Silhouette Patterns) has on trench coat construction and finishing.

I also had the chance to ‘participate’ in the holiday blouse webcast that Peggy did this week. She has a lot of industry knowledge. The webcast was a great experience from a viewers point of view – if this makes sense. The whole hour was live and the audience could interact with each other via ‘instant messaging’ during the webcast. Peggy answered our questions as they were asked. The webcast replays are just as great to learn from but I thoroughly loved the interaction too. Thank you Peggy and your wonderful team.

007 Skyfall:
Judi Dench’s character ‘M’ wears a double breasted light coloured trench. She also wears a dark brown/aubergene two- button duffle woollen coat with welt pockets in a country scene so even M has at least two winter coats.  M’s office wardrobe is dark, fitted and fierce!

These are the trenchcoat posts:
Trenchcoat sewing
Jalie 2680: city coat trench
McCalls 5525: single breast trench
McCalls 5525: a hood in the collar
McCalls 5525: pockets
McCalls 5525: shoulder detailing
McCalls 5525: bound buttonholes
McCalls 5525: belt carriers
McCalls 5525: finished