Latest Posts

Making an 18th century man’s jacket: pattern and interfacing

Published by The Dreamstress

Remember how I cut out and started an 18th century man’s jacket?  Well, I did, and it worked, and then I lost the sleeves, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I used as a pattern!

So when I re-started a 1770s mans ensemble to go with the Lady Anne Darcy dress, I really had to re-start, and find a whole new pattern.

This time I used the 1765-1790 man’s suit pattern from Colonial Williamsburg’s  Costume Close-Up: Clothing Construction and Pattern.  It’s based on this suit:

Suit of beige silk with a pattern of small spotted flowers

The pattern is relatively simple: a front and back piece, two piece sleeves, cuffs, collar, pocket flaps, and some interfacing and padding.

I found the interfacing and padding diagram particularly useful.  I used an old linen with a bit of staining for my interfacing, and a bit of flannel for the padding in the chest.

Marking and cutting out my interfacing strip. You can see the stains on the fabric.  And Felicity being cute.

I pinned my padding and the interfacing on and basted them down at the same time.

The pinned down interfacing and chest padding

A lot of padding wasn’t really necessary: Daniil has a great full chest, and the pigeon look isn’t so popular with men nowadays anyway.

A tiny bit of chest padding.

I just used a sewing machine for all the basting and sewing of the interfacing (and most of the rest of the jacket).  The visible parts are handsewn, but as this was my ‘trial’ jacket, I don’t feel too bad about not being super historical.

Machine sewing 🙁

The white that you are seeing is the lining, a great diagonally ribbed cotton that I picked up a LOT of for $4 a meter.  I’ll blog more about it tomorrow.

I ended up doing quite a bit of adaption to the pattern once I fitted it on Daniil.  The arm-scythes were way too narrow, and the chest and back weren’t narrow enough, so I took it and the chest in quite a bit.

Rate the dress: Lanvin does green and gold

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I presented a 1860s dress that Daniel dubbed “daft as a bucketful of monkeys.”  It was pretty excessive:  all those ruffles and frills and poofs!

The rating divided you into two groups: those of you who like “almost stupidly romantic and frilly” (as Libby described it) and those of you who thought that it looked like it was hiding a roll of toilet paper.  The lovers of feminine froth outweighed the naysayers just enough to bring it in at a passable 6.3 out of 10.

This weeks ‘Rate the Dress’ takes us from almost saccharine sweetness to avant garde sophistication.  The MFABoston holds this Lavin designed green harem-panted evening ensemble with gold Celtic knot inspired gilded-leather trim, clearly designed for the fashionista who wasn’t afraid to take risks.

Woman's evening ensemble in two parts, Winter 1935—36, Lanvin, MFA

The outfit teeters between frumpy and sultry: the lack of sleeves would show off fashionably toned and tanned arms, but the details of the deep armscythes might draw attention to your armpits, which aren’t usually the most attractive bit of our anatomy.  The light, flowing fabric is designed to cling alluringly to curves, but is there just too much gather and blouson effect to allow that?  And are harem pants ever a good idea, even when designed by Lanvin?

Only you can say!  Rate the dress on a scale of 1 to 10