Ahem…I apologize for neglecting my blog so. I do still intend to do a things-I-made-in-2013 post…and I’ll probably blog about my Gettysburg adventures in November…and there’s more things from Alice’s Attic to blog about. Okay okay this blogging thing is clearly not my strength at the moment but I shall try to do better. And by try I mean Alice is pestering me again.
But back to the point of THIS entry. Alice of the famous attic announced (read: we forced her to) she was having a Christmas regency party and while I have several things my man-sized accessory was still completely naked. And that is frowned upon in parties around here. Okay he wasn’t COMPLETELY naked, he did start out with a shirt. He had a lovely linen shirt from his 18th century outfit that I deemed close enough!
Shall we discuss the particulars of my lovely manor?
The waistcoat: was the first thing I made. I just draped that myself. Really it’s a simple garment with a back, a front and no sleeves, not much to tell there. It was made of a remnant of ivory dupioni I got ages ago at Joann’s.Stuff was evil to work with, but it looks pretty. I had no scraps larger than 2″ left over!
Photo courtesy of In the Long Run
The Pantaloons: were too the Country Wives 1800-1825 narrow fall trouser pattern and overall I have to say I was really pleased with them. I used a basic Kona quilting cotton flat lined with muslin. The pattern pieces all matched up really nicely and there were enough illustrations that I could figure it out. As historical patterns go it was way better than many I’ve used. I’d recommend it pretty strongly for anyone wanting to try out some trousers. My one negative is that while the pattern says on the envelope that it offers a pantaloon option (the option I bought it for) It doesn’t really. It has one paragraph about how “easy” it is to just take them in. So I had to figure out how MUCH to take them in myself. Oh and his big flat “buttons” are quarters I gathered fabric over. It was blizzarding that day and I didn’t want to go out in the snow to Joann’s…
The Coat: was actually an out of print Butterick Pattern 3648 that I shortened in the waist (it was HUGELY long waisted) and beefed up the construction of. But the changes I made were actually pretty minor. I pad stitched the collar and lapels, and I used heavy linen for interfacing instead of the iron on interfacing it suggests. I’m a firm believer that iron on interfacing is evil. If I was doing it all over (and I might make him a longer waisted version for later events) I wouldn’t mess with their extremely bizarre collar method. I would just sew the collar right sides together, turn it out and seam it into the neck edge. I found it fiddly, annoying, and I didn’t like how the corners looked when I used their method. The coat itself is a beautiful burgundy wool from B. Black and sons. Not cheap but the fabric was just a DREAM to work with.
For my first attempt at really tailoring something I was pretty chuffed with how it turned out! Oh and those boots? $40 from target! And worth every penny. Rob said they were super comfortable.
Doesn’t a well dressed gentleman just complete an outfit?
Thanks to Alice for throwing an amazing party and thanks to In the Long run for the Photo above …Now if only he had come with HIS own Netherfield…
SewLoud 