Almost a year ago I set about making some cold weather clothing for my 18th century impression. Read about that here. The petticoat was finished immediately for an event last Oct because sewing two rectangles is easy. The jacket was not finished on time because the entire process took a lot longer than I had anticipated / had patience for. I also needed to set sleeves about six times in order to get the hang of it.
Last week I finished this jacket. And today I finished my “warm weather jacket!” Hurray!!
Here it is:
I debated about the style of sleeve. I used the same sleeve pattern as I did on the previous striped linen jacket and my gown. It fits me well enough and there is one seam.
The only fiddly thing I did was make the sleeve a wee bit larger around. I followed this tutorial.
Here is my pattern piece laid out:
And a close up of the exact space between the two pieces:
I didn’t want it huge, but I wanted some wiggle room (because it’s wool and thicker with the lining). In the above pic, I cut out my lining first, then used that as the pattern piece for cutting the wool.
I used the same technique for attaching the lining and wool. Here are the pieces attached and “fileted”:
The wool is a little stiff so is laying funny at the shoulders which really bothers me because when I look at other people’s beautiful work, the shoulders on their garments don’t stand up like that. Because this is only the third or fourth set of sleeves I’ve done, I’m thinking it could be that the wool plus lining makes it bulky (what is the period correct way to get rid of that?); it could be I have too many pleats (is there a proper number?); it could be that my sleeve head is too big (how do I trim it without chopping too much off?). I have a lot to learn yet, but at this point, I’m just happy to have a lined wool jacket to keep me warm!
Two different types of lining:
The pinky red is just on the bodice and is worsted wool. The sleeves are natural colored linen. Between the wool and worsted wool is a wool batting interlining. I knew flatlining this to the striped wool would make things bulky in some spots, but I didn’t realize how bulky. You can’t really tell from the pictures or if you were just standing in front of me, but when you handle the garment…yeah. But it works. And it’s all hand sewn. And it’s done.
And now my little cold weather ensemble:
It’s all ready for an event Sept 12 – two weeks ahead of time!!!!!! (almost 3 – wow!) No deadline fear here!
The wool for the petticoat, wool tape for petticoat hem, and all fabric for jacket was purchased from the most wonderful, WM Booth Draper! (For this petticoat, we miscalculated the amount of blue wool tape and at the next event I got the 10 inches I needed and Mr. Booth sewed it on my petticoat himself! Now that’s service. 😉 )
Wee Needle 