Tag Archives: 1812

Six Toiles, a Coat and a Bonnet

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Living History, Making Things, Reenacting

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

14557116394_73c2d5ea9f_zYes, six toiles.
That’s how many it took to get a coat pattern to fit Mr S the way I thought it should. I finally built the pattern around a sleeve and arm scye that I knew worked and suited the period. From there, I built out the back, altering the center back seam curve to suit Mr S’s figure. Arm scyes are still hard for me to figure out, although sleeves are often my favorite part of a garment. I like how flat pieces become three dimensional in a sleeve, and I enjoy setting sleeves– go figure.

Thanks to the three-day holiday weekend and sitting out a parade to pad stitch, I have a coat body.

I’m not thrilled about the size of the lapels, though I have found extant examples and fashion plates showing lapels this size, and sleeves, too. While I’ve pinned up the sleeves in the back, thinking there’s too much fabric there, I can also see from the images that the subject’s posture was not the best– and that was the moment when I realized that I really did want a mannequin for menswear as the subjects are hard to catch at any age, and variable in posture and wiggliness. They also object to being pinned accidentally.

But there is at least a coat body on the way to being done, so I took a break and made a bonnet, which is really the point here <ahem> milliner’s, not tailor’s, shop, after all.

IMG_1738

Pasteboard brim, blue silk taffeta lined with white silk taffeta (they had new things at the fabric store, very exciting!), trimmed with silk ribbon from Wm Booth and paper flowers from the V&A.

Now, more bonnets, two waistcoats, a gown, an exhibition, a lecture, and Stony Point are all that stand between me and the milliners’ shop in Salem…

Coat Tales

23 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Fail, Living History, Making Things, Reenacting, Research

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Coat pattern version 3

Coat pattern version 3

As the Salem Maritime Festival approaches, my anxiety increases.

Whatever will those ‘gentlemen’ wear? Coats and waistcoats, and thank goodness I finished the Young Mr’s shirt and his farm trousers still fit. He has promised to be a very annoying runaway apprentice, and I have promised to chase him from the miilliners’ shop with a broom, but before any of that can happen, ‘gentlemen’ will need new waistcoats and coats.

I got out Fitting and Proper, and took a look at that coatee pattern. It’s a little earlier than I want, so I also looked at The Cut of Men’s Clothes. In truth, I did not draft up a pattern from scratch. I had a commercially available pattern that I’d purchased when it first came out, one that purported to be historically correct, researched, and came from a reputable company.

Toile number 3. One more fitting to go...

Toile number 3. One more fitting to go…

Well…so I guess the issue with the pattern is that the gentlemen in my household are not of the typically boxy build one may see streaming past tourist sites in Boston, or even lumbering across a field in historical uniforms. My gentlemen are built for the Light Infantry, so when I finished the first muslin (or toile) of the coat and fitted it to Mr S, I removed inches–yes, inches–of material along the side and center back.

I suspected this would be necessary when I first traced the pattern pieces, but went ahead because you really have to mark up a toile on the body in question to get the fit correct. Maybe it’s just this many toiles because I’m inexperienced.

Center back pattern, version 3

Center back pattern, version 3

In any case, the armscye and upper shoulder seam were re-drafted, the drape and sweep of the tails, the width of both side and center tails, the side seam of the body, and both seams on the center back piece, which originally had a flat center back seam (I ask you!), a shorter shoulder seam, and a different side seam.

I’ve left the tail length short and after toile number 4, will mark the final tail length for both gentlemen (luckily we are at a sweet spot where this fits Mr S well and the Young Mr passably, so that with minor adjustments for the lad, a second coat could be made at some time).

I still don’t believe the tail pleats entirely, but lack the time this week to draw them from an original. They still seem too wide, though I have taken an inch or more off every tail edge.

The last thing to really wrangle, after bringing the under arm seam back up, is the sleeve; the upper arm is too long, reflecting the fact that the basis for this sleeve is my Spencer sleeve, which traces its origin to Mr Cooke’s linen suit coat pattern. Both Mr S and the Young Mr have shorter humeri and femora, which put the elbow crook on their forearms which looked rather silly and uncomfortable.

In the end, the pattern I had proved useful only in saving me from the math of enlarging a pattern from a book– it got me full-scale immediately, so that I could proceed to fitting–but this project will, when it finished, reflect multiple fittings and four pattern drafts.

If there is a moral to this story, it is this: Almost nothing will fit straight out of the book or the envelope, so leave plenty of time for catching your subject and fitting muslins.

Another moral may be, “Buy muslin in bulk,” which I did thanks to a clearance sale. I’ve already used 2 yards off the bolt I bought Saturday afternoon.

Gentlemen Prefer Blue

19 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by in Clothing, History, Living History, Museums, Research

≈ Comments Off on Gentlemen Prefer Blue

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Blue wool coat c. 1800. RIHS Museum Collection 1968.38.1

Blue wool coat c. 1800. RIHS Museum Collection 1968.38.1

Continuing the theme of wool coats that will make you itch in August, I present you with another Rhode Island coat. This coat has features I’m more familiar with: a smooth sleeve head, slightly fuller tail pleats, and tail pockets (I love secret pockets). The notched collar with its fine beak-like points makes me think this is later than 1790-1800, as the style heads in the direction of the white wool coat from yesterday’s post.

Slit cuff with two buttons, RIHS Museum Collections, 1968.38.1

Slit cuff with two buttons, RIHS Museum Collections, 1968.38.1

There’s no waist seam, so we can be pretty certain that this coat is earlier than 1818, if not 1810. Another telling measure of age is cuff treatment. This slit cuff seems to start in the 1780s or 1790s and persist into the early 19th century, (and beyond: gentlemen, check your coat sleeves and you’ll see what I mean).

That’s an awfully long range, 1780s to forever, but the smooth sleeve head and lack of waist seam help narrow the time frame. I’d hazard– and this is a hazardous business– ca. 1805 date for this coat, which would give me leeway for a common man to wear this into 1812, though make it more difficult for him to wear it in 1799/1800. (You can look back in fashion, but high style on the lower sorts is a tricky business and requires a lot of thought.)

1925.11.1A, RIHS Museum Collection

1925.11.1A, RIHS Museum Collection

For travel to 1790-1800, I have another coat in mind, though it will probably be a long time before I get it made. This, too, has classic markers of its time, though the collar’s stand-and-fall style makes me think it is closer to 1790 than to 1800.

The lining of this coat is a particular treat: every time I’m able to pull this out for viewing (and since it’s boxed right now, that’s not happening), that blue glazed wool is a treat. The wear mark on the left proper tail lining is intriguing, too: sometimes those start as moth holes and progress, and sometimes they’re wear that’s later found to be delicious and expands by chomping. (Wool and silk and protein, and delicious treats for pests.)

I find these coats really exciting, and often feel a little “Make All the Coats,” but of course I can’t, not quickly, anyway. And these two don’t really solve my August in 1812 problem, as the clock ticks on…but I think there is a solution, thanks to Sharon Burnston and Fitting & Proper.

Dating Mr Darcy…

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Clothing, History, Museums, Research

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

1996.66.4, RIHS Museum Collection

1996.66.4, RIHS Museum Collection

Or at least his coats.

I don’t know about you, but as the summer weather warms up, I like to think wool. I’ve got menswear to sew and desires beyond my knowledge, skills and abilities. Making a wool coat for an event in August seems like a patentable Bad Idea, so it’s a good thing that I have a nice piece of Italian linen-cotton denim-like fabric that I’ve set aside to make a summer-suitable coat for Mr S.

There is a Rhode Island coat, in a Rhode Island collection, of which I am particularly fond. I’ve had this coat in mind for some time now, and have inflicted it upon have shared it with experts several times.  It has a lot to recommend it: a soil mark on the collar, extensive damage and repairs to the left sleeve, fading and wear on the back, fragments of botanical material in the pocket lint, and the nicest linen fabric I’ve ever felt.

This is the coat I wanted to make for Mr S, but then I started thinking about that waist seam, which eliminates this from the style competition for 1812. Rats! But, OK, no reason that we can’t use this as inspiration and make a coat using the fabric but not the waist seam.

1956.9.3, RIHS Museum Collection

1956.9.3, RIHS Museum Collection

So I looked at another coat that just happened to be handy (I know, I am very lucky, and that’s part of why I’m sharing this with you). At first glance, I thought I was good. And by glance, I mean extended looking. But look again: there is a waist seam, it’s just harder to see. So much for the iPhone and lousy light, right? (I noticed the seam today, in even less light, so go figure.) This coat is made of a single twill off white wool can easily be mistaken for plain weave and that is rather light. Very summery, in a way.

Coat style found? Maybe. But I was wondering about the sleeves. I spend a great deal of time looking at sleeves and backs of much earlier coats, so I’m accustomed to a smooth sleeve head. That’s not what you’ll find on this garment, though. This one has gathers, and I thought that was pretty exciting. My closest expert probably had a weird twinge at that moment that he will soon learn to associate with an incoming email from me…

Sleeves, 1956.9.3 RIHS Museum Collection

Sleeves, 1956.9.3 RIHS Museum Collection

This is a nice detail, but one I’m not familiar with. The fashion plates on Serendipitous Stitchery’s post do show increasingly full sleeves in the early years of the 19th century, but that detail didn’t fully register with me until I looked at this coat and processed what Mr C had told me about sleeves and shoulders. Seeing an extant example always makes principles more real.

So what next? At work, I’ve started updating the catalog records for these coats, and they’ll go live early next month. Every time we learn something new, we try to update and correct records so that everyone can benefit. That’s the easy part.

The hard part is reconciling style details for Mr S’s coat. In comparing these examples with fashion plates, I think it’s clear that they are both later than 1812 (waist seam) and nodding to but perhaps not fully embracing high style (see the gathers on the white coat, but the blue coat has only one gathered sleeve, which I attribute to maker error). Plausible dates for both might be 1818-1826, bearing in mind that these will be interpretations of styles, the way Old Navy knocks off adapts its sibling Banana Republic’s styles.

I may be back at that fabulous checked linen coat at the Met, with inspiration drawn from Providence’s plainest blue coat. The process always seems a compromise, in part because I do not think Mr S wants a checked coat, and in part because I’d like to use fabric I already have. Still, there is yet another coat to think about…but tomorrow is another day.

Frivolous Friday: Just a Pretty Bonnet

06 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by in Clothing, Frivolous Friday, Living History, Making Things, Reenacting

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Like Sew 18th Century, I’ve been enjoying preparing for the August 2nd event in Salem.

I’ve not ventured too much into Regency bonnets, or into straw, but I did flirt with a 1794 bonnet. Now I’ve got hats on the brain, and the time to fully indulge my whimsy (though it runs out Sunday).

From the fashion plates, one would almost say, Anything Goes.  Of course it doesn’t, really, but you can get a sense of the exuberance of bonnet trimmings in the illustrations, and the lavish use of ribbons, bows, feathers and flowers.

Not all straw bonnets were lined– in fact, they often weren’t– but the lining protects the straw and the wearer’s face, and finishes this off in a way I like. Pleating in my condition was, ah, challenging, but I figure it was good for my brain to have the exercise. The lining in the brim is white taffeta, but I used white linen in the main crown or tip portion of the bonnet. Instead of bagging the lining, or trying to fit it, I mimicked what Mr B does in the hats he’s made for us. The gathered linen closes with a drawstring and required slightly less effort to fit into the hat.

The velvet ribbons came from Lunarain Designs on Etsy, the ties are taffeta ribbon from Taylor’s Etsy shop, and the straw bonnet form came from Regency Austentation. While the finish work takes time and concentration, I do enjoy both making up and trimming bonnets, and look forward to several more.