Following a couple of busy weeks house-hunting, sewing, working, sewing, painting and more sewing, I thought it best to take stock of where I'm up to with the various projects currently in the works. The problem for me with maintaining a blog is that I don't generally wake up with a plan to work on a specific thing on a given day - generally I wait until everything that needs doing is done and then pick up whatever's closest and fiddle with it until I get frustrated. It makes keeping track of things tricky and I often skip over complicated or large parts of a build because once I'm in "the zone" I forget to photograph my progress...
Case in point (conveniently enough) is the coat I'm working on for my friend Scott over at www.mudbagrunner.blogspot.co.uk - take a look if you've got a minute - which I've been beavering away at for the past few weeks. Regular readers will know that I'd planned to combine two different patterns to create a unique one-off for him that should hopefully stand out from the crowd at May's Comic-Con. The pattern is based on the top-half of Burda's excellent Napoleonic French uniform 2471 (the Bardin standard one), coupled with the skirt section of the ever-dependable Simplicity 2333, otherwise known as the "Captain Hook" pattern. I'd already constructed the lower portion of the coat, but needed to finish the upper portion and work out a way of combining the two. So, with camera safely not in hand, I started work:
The body panels went together very easily, almost too easily in fact, and I had high hopes for the set-in sleeves as they looked a good shape and clearly marked as to which points met where. Boy was I wrong... These sleeves are a complete shit to get right. I've made a number of coats with set-in sleeves and these are by far the hardest to get right. Despite repeated pinning, sewing, trimming and pressing, after two hours per sleeve (no, really...) they still had puckers and minor catches around the sleeve head. You can see in the pictures above where the material is pulling, but after several pins stuck in fingers, swearing and pacing around, I reached a point where I couldn't do much more and I realised that most terrible thing - they'd have to do. I cannot tell you how frustrated I get with the phrase "that will do." No, it won't do, it's right or it's not finished. But even I had to concede defeat on these bloody sleeves and to crack on with getting the coat finished.
On to the skirt sections, which were ready assembled with the additional divides I'd added, and how best to match them to the coat body...
Simplicity's pattern features a full skirt with box pleats to add volume when moving but reduce bulk when standing still, which are aligned on either side of the center back seam on the original pattern. My problem was that on the Burda coat body, it included side panels to aid shaping around the torso and to match with pleats in the original skirt section. Looking at how the coat hung I decided to (hopefully) match a pair of custom box pleats with the side panel seams, continuing the line down through the length of the coat. Some pining and adjusting later, I attached the skirt section with the following result:
Safe to say I was very happy with the result - I'd managed to match both pleats almost exactly with the side back seams, continuing around the coat to match the side seams:
You can see the top-stitched seams matching up as well, one of the small details that makes me happy in a way it probably shouldn't... The center front didn't match up exactly, but I can lose the excess once I come to adding the lining:
Next came a quick test fitting, which threw up another problem - those bloody shoulders again... Up until now I managed to get away with not adding shoulder pads to any coat I'd made, largely through careful fabric and seaming choices, but it became clear that I'd need them with this project as the coat demanded a structured approach. To construct the shoulder padding I pre-washed a pair of commercial shoulder pads and, following a tip from a sewing book I have, wrapped them in interfacing to make a shoulder wadding sandwich, as follows:
This was then pinned into the shoulder of the coat, ready for fine adjustment once the coat was tried on. You can really see the difference between the shoulders before and after adding the pads:
Hopefully we'll get another fitting in later today (house-viewing permitting) to refine the shoulder head further, but once I have the lining and interfacing in the rest of the coat body and upper sleeves - bloody sleeves! - it should soften the shoulder seam and add enough structure.
Aside from the coat I took delivery of my new button solution this week, which will be used for a period accurate and washing-machine-compatible fastening solution; instead of simply attaching buttons and constructing the matching button-hole, for Scott's coat I'll be using shank buttons attached with shank pins. This means that rather than sewing the button on as usual, a small button-hole will be inserted where the button would attach to the coat, through which the button's shank will be passed and held in place with a split pin.
The buttons themselves came from the excellent www.pewterbuttons.co.uk, who I cannot recommend highly enough, and purchased in two different sizes, 24mm and 20mm from memory. Here's what I received, along with the "shank pins" from eBay which are in reality 21mm r-clips:
This will allow the buttons to be completely removed for washing, which as well as being period accurate will also prevent the buttons from tarnishing and that annoying noise of buttons rattling around in the washing machine...
In addition to working on Scott's coat I've managed to get some more done on my own garment, resolving the question of how I'd tackle the various turn-backs and details in a way that was both practical and sat well with my desire for historical realism. I decided that I was happy with stitching the turn-backs down as per the actual historical military uniforms I'd read about, so I started pressing and pinning the various sections into place ready for stitching. These were largely done by eye, trying to go for what looked right rather than for fervent accuracy. Here's the result:
The front opening was pressed back about three inches on either side down the entire length and stitched in place, after which I put the coat on and picked a point to turn back the lower edge. This was done by eye and chosen for how well the coat sat, rather than for it's proportions. Again, the whole length was sewn down, resulting in the "panel" effect you can see in the lower left picture above, resulting in a finish very similar to the Assassin's Creed 3 Connor Kenway coat. The center back was also doubled back to add contrast and reduce bulk, sewn down in the same way as the front, by running a line of stitching through the bias edging.
These pictures were taken before the addition of the hood, which after some deliberation was also sewn in place to help provide stability. Also note the addition of the turn-back cuffs, which I added to provide a bit more detail and to help lengthen the sleeves slightly, after it turned out I'd cut them a little short to be practical. The cuffs have since been trimmed in bias tape with the usual decorative stitching, the simple pattern I made shown below:
Speaking of hoods, I need to get Scott's one started. And little 'un's attached to her coat. And get her coat finished. Damn, I'd better get started..
More to come next week, hopefully featuring some progress on Scott's coat, the completion of my own and the adaptation of Jamie (little 'un)'s coat from the one I wore for last year's Comic-Con. I'll leave you with the progress on my latest painting project, a 3D printed replica of Corvo Attano's folding dagger from the Dishonored video game by Ammnra Creations, purchased through Shapeways.com. I'll be featuring this in a future post, so stay tuned.
Until next time!
