Jacket starts to look like a Jacket

After the drama of the numerous toiles for the jacket, the actual thing came together pretty quickly. The pulling across the back is just the photo, I double checked it. I’m pleased with it, historically I think the back should be smaller, but I widened it for the sake of my model, Lee has to wear this for a couple of hours and he found the accurate version far too uncomfortable, something I can’t really expect him to suffer through when he’s doing it for free.

Of course, I couldn’t leave it all plain; and the nice, cheap shops on the market were not doling up the goods, so… a £16 trip to John Lewis was called for.

A few hours of hand sewing, and it looks a bit more decorative. I used a strip of gold ribbon and a piece of cording for each stripe. I discovered that ironing a small strip of interfacing onto the ribbon made it stay a lot straighter when I stitched it to the jacket. Each stripe involved ironing the ribbon into shape, stitching it down, then couching the braiding over the top. Now I just need to add the bias binding and the pockets.

Slicing and Icing

Even though she never actually said it, Marie Antoinette's most well known saying is without a doubt “Let them eat cake”, so what else could we make into a hat other than a cupcake.

We used plastazote, Denise carved the top and I sorted out the case and the plate. We started off with a pattern for a miniature top hat and built it out from there.

After a couple of coats of latex its starting to take shape. It needs a few more coats, some shimmery paint and some airbrushing, but it should look pretty cute.

3rd times a charm…

I’ve had an absolute mare with the footman jacket. I’ve ben working on it for the past two weeks, drawing the pattern, making toiles, failing, repeating. I did this loads and no matter how much I measured it kept coming out too small. Maybe its lack of sleep or I’m just the ultimate scatter brain, but it took about a week for me to work out what was going wrong. I was using Hanna’s (my female model) measurements, not Lee’s (my male model, above), not sure how I managed to make such an obvious mistake for so long. Anyway, its fixed now, and so I finally have a toile that fits well enough I can bare to show it to the internet world.

It needed a bit of adjustment, but mostly it fitted okay. Though Lee did complain it was very tight under the arms. I’m not sure how much bigger to make them, I don’t want him to be uncomfortable, but historically the arm holes were a lot tighter than we wear them.

In this image the left hand side has been taken in and the right hand side hasn’t. It definitely hangs better.

This is an option for the buttons, its either these or fabric covered…I still have to decide.

Starting the Footman

I started work on the footman’s jacket today, I was going to finish the ladies outfit in its entirety first, but I still haven’t settled on a fabric for it, so i thought I would make a start on this. It’s quite daunting, I’ve never worked on male clothing before (other than tunics). I found a full size version of the pattern above, but my model is a little on the small side, and the pattern was for a person over 6 foot. So I thought I would do better to work straight from the book. I had to completely ignore the scaling it gave, it would again have been way too big.

The process involved lots of grid drawing and took a couple of hours. I have decided a pattern master is an absolutely amazing piece of kit that I definitely need to own.

I very carefully made sure all the different bits matched the measurements, checked, and rechecked, then cut and stitched. Took time over tracing it out and ironing the side pleats.

After all that (well, an hour or so) I slipped it on…

How on earth did I not spot it before? The back was about 10cm too narrow! I knew I was having a particularly scatter-brained day, but I remember looking a the back pattern piece and thinking it looked narrow. How come I didn’t measure it? I astound myself sometimes, never mind though, this is what toiles are for.

Regency Gown Toile

I used a combination of patterns and alterations to make this. And seen as I haven’t made a sash yet its tied with a head scarf. Its calico on the top half and an unidentifiable black substance for the skirt.

Obviously it needs a few inches taken off the bottom, but other than that its a pretty decent fit. It is being worn over the corset here, and it covers it all up. I’m trying to decide whether to drop the neckline slightly?