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Late 1880s coat - Completed

2/18/2017

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I'm a terrible blogger! This was finished months ago but I never updated, and now I can't remember what I wanted to share about the process. I really enjoyed the collaborative process - there was a frustrating stage as I tried to understand what my customer wanted for the hood lining, but I figured it out in the end :)
​I LOVE this coat, and so did my customer!
"The coat is absolutely beautiful ! I love all the details on it, the pockets, the buttons, the color of the fabric and the hood lining and how the coat fit, it fit just perfect. I love how the sleeves fit at my wrist and how the bustle falls over my skirt. I wore the coat today, however the weather was still a little to warm for it, and I got so many compliments of my friends and family. They all think the coat looks amazing.
I am so happy with my coat, it is my favorite of my wardrobe."
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Late 1880s coat - Lining and back

8/30/2016

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Lining partly assembled - I'm liking the shape that the quilted satin gives!
​And on to the real fabric! Because I need to match the patterns across seam lines I've cut my muslin apart right along the stitching lines. First I lay everything out and figure out the best placement of the checks to get things as lined up as possible - when a curved edge is meeting a straight edge it's not going to be possible to match things perfectly but it's still gotta look good!
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I drew around the pattern with chalk, then flipped it over and drew the other side. Then because I'd cut all the seam allowances off I had to draw them back on again before cutting out. Because this layer is going over a padded lining I cut a larger than usual allowance so I can adjust if required.
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And then I thread traced the chalk outline with basting thread - this is an important step because the chalk will rub off with handling, and it also allows us to see the stitching lines from both sides.
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And I tacked the back seam - it looks yummy!
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Late 1880s coat - pattern testing

8/15/2016

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I'm really pleased with how this pattern turned out - everything fit together first time and the sizing is spot on - in fact, I added extra seam allowance when I cut it out and made it up a little larger than drafted so I'd have room to take it in, and I think I should have gone with making it up exactly as drafted. Never mind, I can readjust :)
​The bad news is that when I tried to put it on my adjustable dressform her bottom fell off! So here it is on a slightly too big non-adjustable dressform.
​Next step: drafting the collar and a second draft of the hood.
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Late 1880s coat

8/14/2016

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I got my first custom order on etsy, and it's an exciting one! A grey with yellow check wool full length coat, custom drafted from a pattern in Frances Grimbles Bustle fashions 1885-1887. The lining will be black quilted satin, and there will be 35 buttons down the front. The hood is removable and lined in grey satin.

​PS. my toddler has removed several keys from my laptop so please excuse any missing letters - I can spell, honest!
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And because my sewing goal is to do things more like the Victorians, and to do that I need to see how they did it, I p[aid a visit to extantgowns.com. This is a fantastic site which gathers pictures of original garments from auction sites and private collections, and quite a few of them have internal shots as well.  Everything is very neat and - well, modern looking on the insides, very different to the insides of bodices I've seen from the same period. There's even a coat with a quilted satin lining, just like the one I'll be making.
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1880's bustle

10/6/2014

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This mid 1880's style bustle was made as part of a course at The School of Historical Dress in November 2013. I learnt so much on this course (although I did promise not to give away any trade secrets, so this post won't be super detailed), and the end result is a 100% accurate duplicate of a extant bustle. The bustle has a horsehair pad at the top and thread covered steels to create the shape - notice how much narrower they are than the plastic covered stuff you can buy on the high street.
Check out my stripe matching - I'm super pleased with it, and it was achieved through marking the stitching lines with chalk then with thread, then basting everything before stitching it. There was a LOT of hand sewing in the course, and I actually learnt how to use a thimble properly!
Notice in the second picture that the bustle is actually narrower than I am - this is a feature of the second bustle period. Useful because it means that bustles at this time are one-size-fits-all. The first bustle period is a different shape, adding width to the body as well as sticking out at the back. I'd never noticed the difference before, but after Luca (the teacher on this course) took us through Harper's Bazarre pointing out the feature of each period it's super obvious. And a really good lesson in the importance of primary sources - after looking at the fashion plates of the time we looked at pictures of extant garments in books, and with out new knowledge of trends over time it was obvious that some of them had actually been mislabelled.
Below you can see me wearing the bustle along with the rest of my victorian underwear (which I now need to remake to be more historically accurate, and of course to fit my post baby body!) It's interesting to see how the weight of the petticoat affects the shape of the bustle - in the pictures without it actually sticks up slightly.
Hopefully my remade underwear will be done using some of the principles I learnt on the course - using primary sources to identify the correct shapes and draft the pattern, and studying the construction of antique pieces to find the correct techniques to use. More on that later.
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    My crazy costuming, sewing and maybe other stuff too blog! Hopefully others can learn from my mistakes and I can learn from your comments :)

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