SEWING A DRAFTED PATTERN
In one week, I barely managed to draft my first historic pattern from Costume Close-Up and hand sew it.
Costume Close-Up, published by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, is a fantastic resource, analyzing garments of the past.
They provide patterns in miniature that need to be drafted several times their size to fit.
However, it doesn’t work like a modern pattern by giving step-by-step detail.
Feeling as though I was in the homestretch whipping out this coat, I got stuck when I needed to pleat the coat tails.
On the pattern is a slash mark for the back of the coat, which I carefully drafted and left towards the end, so I could carefully snip the fabric when it was time.
OOPS!
Then, once I snipped the fabric, I felt I had gone too far.
ANALYZING PICTURES ON MY LAPTOP
Suddenly running to my laptop to analyze the CW interpreters in their frock coats, I didn’t see any frock coats worn in the historic area that have a slashed back section like this one does.
ANALYZING FROCK COATS IN THE HISTORIC AREA
On Friday in the historic area, I analyzed all the coats which looked completely different from my son’s.
The next day, my son wore his coat for the first time.
The more I looked at the back of his coat, and compared it to the back of the other coats, the more my opinion of the coat crumpled.
Whereas at the beginning of the day I was determined to work with the slash mark error, by the end of the day I had decided on buying new fabric to start from scratch.
I was discouraged.
ANALYZING COATS AT THE TAILOR SHOP
As I walked into the tailor shop Sunday afternoon, he was busy with guests.
When I saw several coats lying on the counter, I inspected one of them.
Taking multiple pictures of the tailor’s fine workmanship on the tails, I was glad to have photo references to take home for deeper analysis.
After the bulk of the guests left, the tailor began chatting with us.
TAILOR REASSURANCE
When I told him I had drafted my first pattern from Costume-Close Up and that I had misinterpreted a slash mark and ruined my son’s coat, he asked what I was talking about.
I showed him my son’s coat.
Puzzled, he asked me again what the trouble was.
Wasn’t it as plain as day?
The tailor grabbed some scratch paper to sketch a coat pattern, complete with the benign looking slash mark.
That’s the problem, I exclaimed, showing him the mark. I cut that and the coat is ruined.
“How?” the tailor asked.
Bewildered that he wasn’t seeing the problem, I showed him my son’s coat again, pointing out the seam I had to create across the lower back because of the slash mark.
I told him about the gentlemen’s coats in town that are a solid piece of fabric.
The tailor explained that is merely a different style of coat.
Looking at him in amazement it dawned on me.
“You mean I simply made a different style of coat than they wear?” I asked.
“Yes,” the tailor said.
The style the men wear are common to the latter part of the 18th century, whereas the one I drafted was an older style, dating from the mid-eighteenth century.
“Oh no! I always seem to be making old fashioned clothes for my son!” I wailed.
The tailor assured me that was okay, as Virginians didn’t care.
TAILOR SHOWS ME A FROCK COAT LIKE MY SON’S
He showed me the very coat I had been analyzing earlier, to point out that it had been constructed the same way as I was doing, with the horizontal seam in the lower back of the coat.
He then proceeded to explain how I should do the pleats better.
OVERSTUFFED POCKETS
As he inspected my son’s coat, he noticed huge bulges in his pockets.
When he asked him to empty his pockets, my son pulled out every sort of treasure that boys like to accumulate.
In disbelief the tailor told him that he shouldn’t stuff his pockets so full, or they will rip off.
Laughing, I said one of my son’s requirements for this coat was to give it *deep* pockets so he could store lots of stuff in them.
While the tailor seriously told him not to do that, my son just happily grinned. 😉
DOLL PAPER FROCK COATS
As I looked from the coat on display and looked over to my son’s coat, I was puzzled as to how to begin to fix the mess with my son’s tails.
How would I ever remember, even with pictures?
The tailor had an idea!
After sketching the other part of the coat pattern, he cut the paper in half, and handed me a pair of scissors to cut out the coat back, while he cut out the coat front.
We were making paper mock-ups of the coat so he could show me how to pleat it, sort of origami style!
What fun!
What a thrill to stand there in the tailor’s shop and cut out something with him.
The younger guests thought so too! They immediately ran over to ask what was going on.
The tailor took my piece, then picked up the scissors, and cut that dreaded slash mark.
That made me laugh!
I guess subliminally I was avoiding cutting anymore slash marks.
But he boldly cut into it (it’s on the left side of the left piece) and folded all the pieces and marked them as to how to fold them, how to sew them, how to connect them, etc.
TAILOR CHECKING IN
On the way back in preparation for another PTV version of Revolutionary City, we met up with the tailor in the streets.
Teasingly, he asked if I had finished the corrections to the coat, waistcoat and breeches?
Laughing, I had been busy, since one of the soldiers asked me to handsew three shirts for the troops in exchange for a yoke!
COMMENTS FROM MY OLD BLOG
Rebecca October 18, 2010 at 5:44 PM –So cool, so cool, so cool!!!!! I LOVE this post! I wish I had been there to watch you and Mr H cutting and working out that pattern. It sounds like so much fun. How nice of him to do that with you guys, and what a great idea! The revised coat pleats in the last photo look great (as do those buttons!). Huzzah for such a fine job on your very first scaled-up pattern! 🙂
