HSF #6: A tiger of different stripes

The Challenge: #6 -- Stripes! I did a striped man's frock coat for Mr. E. in exchange for him making me some more wooden threadwinders.

Fabric: Well, it's stripey...I'm only guessing at the fabric content but it's quite like a soft canvas, so I'm assuming a good bit of cotton content. I'm not the best judge of these things but it didn't feel like a synthetic at all.

Pattern:  Simplicity 0857, modified...the amount of fabric in the gores was excessive...it would've looked like a flared button-front dress on Gentleman E., so I did away with all but the back one. Also the cuffs were weirdly huge and floppy so those got modified as well.

Year: We'll call it anywhere from 1740-70 (i.e. I really don't think it'd be right in any one of those decades so we'll just lump them together, oh well)

Notions: Thread, buttons, canvas for button stand.

How historically accurate is it? Because I haven't researched menswear as much, it's kind of an approximation...also the inside seams are machine done because if I'm not wearing it, I just can't bring myself to care that much, haha. But all visible seams are done by hand and the buttonholes are half-machined and then hand-finished. There's a button stand added to keep the buttons from pulling all out of whack after normal wearing, which I learned about from Hallie's post. I don't know if I did it quite correctly but it really does help keep the buttons looking straight and sturdy!
    The coat is not lined because the weather here when we usually have our main summer re-enactment is VILE. The French fort is nestled in basically a floodplain bowl between bluffs on either side of the Mississippi (those idiots never did have a good head for feasible building sites, see: New Orleans) that yes, occasionally floods, but more often crushes you with the humidity that settles down like an invisible thick unbreathable soup and leads to 100+ F afternoons. I know that in areas like South Carolina, colonial coats were sometimes left unlined because of the interminable heat, so I chose to do that as well because I'd rather spend time thinking about how miserable (yet fabulous) *I* feel in layers of petticoats and gowns and caps and hats than listen to Mr. E. grouse about his hot coat. Also for that reason it's intentionally quite loose...as are his shirts...his wrinkly breeches...you get the idea. Tight things make him squirm and protest. So he doesn't QUITE cut the ideally dashing figure as it always looks like he's wearing the clothes of a bigger guy, but as long as he's happy!

Hours to complete: Probably around 8.

First worn: Not really yet! Just to try on. Hopefully next weekend for an event, but if not then it'll be worn early June.

Total cost: I think the fabric was about $4 from the thrift store, and the thread was probably almost as expensive.

He was quite the ham when he first put it on.

Close-up of the buttons and the button stand, functional pockets. 

 I really dislike menswear, partially because it's hard to understand, having spent a good part of my life shopping for and sewing for and bemoaning the female figure, which despite its weirdness is at least familiar in trying to fit. But men! At least, the one and only that I've had to try to pin things on is, himself, like a bunch of squares and rectangles...which should seem to make it easier, but it's been a strange transition. While it turned out better than I thought, for the HSF By the Sea challenge I'm thinking about doing another one for Mr. E now that I know a bit more. Could I be...starting to enjoy menswear?! We'll see! If I could get good at it, it would be lucrative around here because there are a great many more male re-enactors than female and it might pay off to be able to sell men's items.

Gearing Up (slapdash clothes, miniature portraits, and shoe-binding)

Next weekend is the biggest 18thc event around here, so I have been hurriedly throwing some last-minute things together for other people. My gentleman-friend now has three pairs of breeches, two I sewed myself (baggy, saggy, but at least he won't be running around in a loincloth, ugh), and the other...was formerly an unspeakable atrocity. I should have taken some before pictures but I was sure it wasn't savable.

The breeches in the middle began their life as a canvas pair of long trousers, only they were the skinniest trousers I have EVER seen...like the 18thc equivalent of skinny jeans. Also, at one point, they had been dyed with a walnut stain, only over time they faded to a delicate pastel shade of pink. 18thc pastel-pink skinny jeans. And to top that off, they had stains and light patches and a blown-out posterior from a sudden skid down a hill. But for the heck of it, I thought "at least he'll have a bum-around pair to cook in instead of ruining the nice corduroy ones I made" so I cut them off, dyed them with some random powder-dye from Walmart, and while I wish they had stayed the rich dark blue that they were before a rinse and a wash, I have to say that the dusty blue is an improvement on pastel pink. The splotches and stains aren't gone but he's delighted. I even sewed some non-functioning buttons on the sides.


Then I also unwisely promised a friend that IF I got the chance, I'd try to whip up something for her to wear if she came down for the day, so she gets a purple ensemble.

Lovely former lavender drapes on top, darker purple bedsheet skirt on bottom. There was no way I was going to buy fabric from anywhere but the thrift store if it might not even get worn!

 Yeeeahhh I don't really know what that is. It's a rare caraco-shortgown-jacket. Good thing my friend doesn't know the slightest about accurate clothing.

And this week, I got some lovely things in the mail, all the fault of Lauren over at American Duchess, as usual. First off, an "imperfect" pair of silk Georgies (pfft, looked fine to me) that I dyed a lovely light pink. Then some petersham ribbon from The Sewing Place in "misty blue" and "peach blossom" to bind my two silk pairs of shoes with, as Lauren demonstrated on a pair of her Regency shoes a while back. It is SUPER easy. I just picked up an Aleen's craft glue pen from Walmart and applied it to the petersham ribbon in small sections, which you then press down onto the shoe and kind of stretch and smooth and pinch it to make it "stick." With the blue shoes, I didn't have faith that the glue was sticky enough so I carefully paperclipped the ribbon to the shoe, and ended up with weird wire indentations all along the ribbon binding. I went ahead and just trusted the glue on the pink shoes and they turned out fine.

 

     Accessories galore. I wish all my shoes could sleep in bed with me, I love them THAT much.

And lastly I got some fun pendants and clear sticker cabochons from an etsy seller Lauren recommended in her miniature portraits tutorial, so that all I had to do was print off some pretty portraits from the internet, glue them to the pendant, and stick the clear sticker cabochon over the picture! So easy, so cute. 

 

Aww. Imaginary sweethearts. The guy is a total historical hottie.

So that is what I've been up to lately...unless I miraculously get time this week to dress up in what I'll be wearing next weekend, I probably won't post until I get time to go through my photos after the event...so excited to finally wear all the things I've been working on over the past year!