All posts tagged: construction

18th century menswear: the waistcoat

I’ve told you all about the 18th century jacket I made. Here are the construction details of the waistcoat that goes with it. The fabric is a white cotton with a slightly irregular diagonal rib woven in. The breeches are made out of the same fabric. There is more info on the fabric and trims here. Like the jacket, the pattern basically comes from Costume Close-Up, though I made so many changes that CCU ended up being just a basic guide to 18th century waistcoat construction. I patterned up the waistcoat without having anyone to try it on, and I was really worried that it would be too small, so I used a clever feature that I saw on an extent waistcoat (unfortunately I can’t remember where from!) and left the back seam open, with ties to make it adjustable. I’ve also seen images of waistcoats with closed back seams and ties, and waistcoats that laced up the back. The LACMA has a pattern for one. As with the jacket, I managed to do a …

The 18th century man’s jacket: construction & fittings

Published by The Dreamstress

I didn’t take a lot of construction photos while I made the 18th century man’s jacket, but I’ll do my best to explain how I made it. I’m sure it is not a historically accurate technique, but it made a very sturdy garment, with no machine sewing showing on the outside. I started with the two front chest pieces of the jacket First, I sewed around the front edge, bottom edge, and the edge of the first pleat of the jacket, with the outer and lining fabric right sides together. This meant that when I turned the pieces right side out and pressed them, the front, hem, and pleat edge were all finished. Then I sewed placed the back pieces with their lining fabrics, right sides together, and sewed down from the centre back pleat, along their hems, and up the side pleat. Then I turned them right sides out, and pressed the now-finished hem. So basically, all the hemming on the jacket was done by bag-hemming. With the back pieces hemmed, but still separate, …

Corset making is hard work

Published by The Dreamstress

It’s not that it’s so tricky – it’s just long, and tedious, and surprisingly physically demanding. First you cut out tons of little pieces – my favourite corset pattern has 10, and you need at least a front and a back of each, though I often use as many as four layers of the same piece. The corset I’m currently working on is 4 layers – a fashion fabric, two layers of ultra-fine coutil (I find that two layers of fine makes a nicer corset than one heavy layer), and a lining fabric. When working with four layers, you have to flat line every single piece, so that one layer of coutil and the fashion fabric become one, and one layer of the coutil and the lining fabric become one. Then there is the fitting in of the busk, which isn’t easy, especially if you do the proper way (which I do) without punching any holes for your busk buttons. After the busk goes in, there is the pinning – so many pieces to pin …