Horrid Green Frock Coat at Birth

Remember this coat? I’ve been attempting to solve this coat for a while. While the Zombie Coat had to be put aside after the tail pleat debacle (what was I thinking? Sewing while tired means hems only, or simple straight seams), I finished up the Horrid Green Frock Coat. It is somewhat less horrid now. Mr S wore it yesterday to be a member of the Jackson’s militia impression of the 10th MA at Longfellow House in Cambridge.

The sleeves were removed and the seam taken in to remove excess material. Perhaps I could have slimmed it a bit more, but it needed to sit the armscye.

The shoulder seam (where back and front join) was also taken in and snugged up twice. The side seams were taken in a great deal from the armscye down, but not enough. To fix the remaining bagginess at the small of the back above Mr S’s hips, I will have to take more out of the front panel, “and work it into the side pleats.” (Easy enough for the Master to say, harder for my brain to figure out.)

Somewhat better, but two more seams to snug.

This is the closest photo to the one above. You can see that the line of the front has been changed and slimmed, and a collar added for stability and style in addition to those cuffs. I also changed the shape of the pocket flaps, and moved them to change the look of the front panels. They don’t have to match the pocket slits, as long as they don’t reveal the slits (one bag is madder linen, I ran out of large pieces of green), so I moved them to change the look of the front.

The mariner’s cuffs were fun. If the Zombie behaves decently this week, I’ll give him mariner’s cuffs on his too-short-blue-wool-sleeves. Well, I’ll probably give him mariner’s cuffs anyway, just so he can get the coat on and off.

On Brattle Street, Cambridge, while it was still “cool.”

And, finally, a full-length view of the coat. It takes more than webbing and belts to reshape a silhouette. It’s taken 13 months from first making that coat to get it to this point. Thanks to an expert’s chalk marks in February, transforming it into something at least wearable was possible, though at first sight, those chalk marks were devastating and overwhelming. It took overalls to get me to face this coat, so thank goodness for the horribleness of overalls.