Problems

George Weed had a problem. In Woodbury, Connecticut in 1746 he handed off some bogus examples of the colony's script to a known counterfeiter. George informed this fellow that his brother Samuel signed the notes and could imitate any man's handwriting. The counterfeiter got arrested in Fairfield County in October. Weed passed some fake 20's in a local tavern and visited his "friend" in jail, sharing a mug of flip. The doctor advised him to escape. As soon as the counterfeiter was released on bail, he ratted out his co-conspirator. Weed was arrested but promptly ran from the constable.

Around that time, the great actor turned evangelist George Whitefield visited Connecticut. Weed may have seen him, or someone similar like Eleazer Wheelock, which might explain his problems with the Baptist church he attended in Philadelphia in 1765. He called their attempts to curb his preaching a trick that Dr. Faust played with the Devil:

Whereas George Weed has withdrawn himself from this church without applying properly for a dismission, and has since declined to come to show cause for his conduct for which irregularity and refusal, and also for his declining to pay the money he subscribed towards building the meeting house we do therefore erase his name out of the church book and declare him to be no longer of us, and this we do in hope it may be blest for the good of his soul.

Speaking of problems, here is one of the linings I cut for the coat.

At first, I thought this was because I forgot to iron the silk before I cut it. Yet the other lining piece fits fine. They were both cut at the same time, from the same pattern. Nothing for it but to cut another lining for one side. Ino, I could piece the tail, just don't feel like it.

The silk also tends to explode when cut with a buttonhole chisel.  I could have done the fancy-pants individual lining squares between the buttonholes, but this coat isn't nice enough. 

Instead, I get a confetti of tiny pink threads poking through the buttonhole slit. I learned the hard way not to pull on these, as shown below.

As with the pocket flaps, I have learned a new and better way to handle pleats. Not sure why I have been doing them wrong all these years. More on that later.

  
 

Leg Buttons

Linen tape is used to secure four small regimental buttons, as seen in this inside view. The knee band is sewn to the button and buttonhole stand, which overlap it. Not visible here is another button sewn to the knee band on the same side as the others.

Blocked by the buttonhole stand is another buttonhole in the knee band at the bottom of this image. Because the wool will stretch, the buttons and buttonholes are tight and hard to button at first.

Make sure to measure for button placement with the thickest stockings you will wear with the breeches. It's fine to transfer these measurements to the other leg, but ONLY if your knees are the same size. Mine are not anymore.

The convex front and concave back of the leg are obvious here, and the outside seam is also slightly longer than the inside. The marked buttons make this garment specialized, but attractive. Now all that is left is to finish the fall.

Finishing Touches

When it comes to pleats, it's good to keep that sh*t tight. Anchor the tops to the reinforcing panel and each other. Two long stitches through each pleat keep the folds from opening too much. Tacking the pleats to each other and the coat is the final step.

The coat is flipped on the form constantly, and buttoned to check fit. Since the back pleats droop below the fronts slightly (after the side seams are trimmed,) the lining bottom is cut free, and the pleats are trimmed to match the front. Buttons inside the pleat folds finish the bottoms. Buttons at the hip seams are secured with leather cord to the reinforcing panels like this

 Time to fix some neglect of the cuff panels. Mid-century regimentals often had huge fake sleeve flaps. Three decorative buttons make the faux flap look secure. All they need is some close worked buttonholes to set them off. We're all about appearance here. It's hard to beat elbow buttons for style, or a cuff large enough to hold tobo or spare rounds.

Here is a problem we may not be able to fix. Not easily, anyway. Oh well, it fits fine fully-buttoned and open. The NEXT coat will be better.

Collar

English regimental coat collars in this period mimic the lapels in construction. Here is the under collar attached to the coat with the seam pressed open. The lining and interfacing peek in at the bottom.

As with armholes and sleeves, the neck opening of the coat has to be the same length as the long under collar edge. Too long is much easier to fix than too short.

The blue over collar overlaps the under collar by an 1/8". Here is the back turned up, the point is common on late 18th-century collars. To reduce bulk, the left and right collar pieces are sewn together edge to edge. Don't try this with anything but Kochan broadcloth. Make sure to fold the collar down BEFORE attaching the over collar. Pin it in a couple places--important to match the over and under collar fold so it doesn't pull the under collar outward.

The over collar covers the top pressed open under collar seam at the neck edge. The lining edge gets turned under, and covers the bottom under collar seam allowance. It is secured with an underhand hem stitch. Now comes the tricky part--the collar buttons to the top-most lapel button.

Mark and cut a horizontal buttonhole in each collar edge. They get the same treatment and tapes as the lapels.  Next time faux pocket flaps.

Fusilier Lace

There are a couple ways to make a rectangle pattern loop and the 7th Regiment's is the hard way. The larger of the two loops requires 8 3/4" of lace (the smaller is around 8".) Here are two of the larger pieces ready to be folded.

Only one line of stitching holds these things together, the rest is folding and ironing. If it goes bad, unfold it, press it flat, and start again. If making lace for a non-working buttonhole
skip down to step 7. The open end gets hidden under the button.

Match the ends of the lace and pin it at a 45 degree angle. The pin is 1/4"
 in from the stripe side edge. This is the stitch line.

Ino, I used a sewing machine. I'm terrible. It won't be seen when it's sewn down.

Here is the first fold, pressed. The tail needs to be cut off and Fray Checked.

Flipped 90-degrees, here is the tape held against a finished one for size.
Fold the other end back on itself  as shown.

Iron the second fold. This is the height of the finished rectangle: 1 1/8"

With the lace right-side up, press a 45-degree fold to complete one end.
The long sides should be parallel and the inside edges nearly touching. 

Now fold the whole tape in half, to locate the center of the unfinished side. Here
it is marked with a pin. The center keeps the tape symmetrical when folded.

Back to the coat--flip the tape upside down, center the pin on a finished
buttonhole and make two folds, 1 1/8" apart. Make these as even as possible. 

Getting close--two more  folds are ironed. The finished length should be around 2 1/2".

Iron the other side flat with two more 45-degree folds to finish. Here it is from underneath. 

Next time, hooks, eyes, and linings.

Lace and Buttonholes

The 18th-century British army LOVED lace. Musicians were practically wrapped in the stuff. The 1768 Lace Book at Windsor Castle documents the official pattern of each regiment on a sample of the coat facing cloth. Roy Najecki was kind enough to document it on his website. Of course, some period paintings show different lace than the regulation--the perils of research.

It's heartwarming to see a military organization, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, going bonkers over all the great stuff available to distinguish themselves. Not just all the different colors of wool lace, but folding and pairing, combined with coat facing and lining colors, badges, and numbered buttons all made them unique.

The Royal Fusiliers were no exception. While they had a rather tame pattern, with only one blue stripe, their method of folding was annoyingly distinctive. As far as is known, they didn't pair their buttonholes, so there are ten equally-spaced on each coat lapel, four on each pocket flap, cuff, and back, as well as two on the collar. All but the pocket flaps and back are functional.

I made this rough template from a scrap of cardboard. It measures the distance between buttonholes on the lapel and the exact distance of the buttonhole location from the lapel edge (and some other stuff I can't remember.) After the top and bottom buttonholes are measured, a simple chalk line shows where to edge stitch and cut.

Since the buttonholes will be lined with tape, super-craptastic contractor grade buttonhole stitching will suffice. Edge the chalk line with blue thread, cut it with an appropriately-sized chisel and whip over the raw edges. I know, it looks bad, but the King doesn't pay by the hour.

Here is one of the little buggers folded up (more on that later.) There are two different sized loops on the 7th Foot coat. The ones on the pocket flaps and cuffs are slightly smaller. Obviously, it will be bigger than the actual buttonhole. Start by pinning the inside tape edge to the outside end of the buttonhole.

A running stitch in white thread secures the inside edge, then square and pin the outside and repeat the process. British military contractors were crazy enough to add a THIRD line of stitching to the center, but drunk Irish tailors ignore such things. Once all ten are on, use linen tape to secure the buttons to the interfacing on the inside of the coat.

Make sure to iron the snot out of the tapes to flatten them out. With all that said, this is a lowest bidder job. It's perfectly acceptable to use tapes only closed on one side for non-working buttonholes. The buttons on the pocket flaps hide the open end, so one sided loops are fine there. Next time, the mystery of lace folding.

Mysterious Folds

Time to study the beast in the wild. This fantastic English suit coat at the Met dates to between 1750 and 1775. You can see more pictures of it here: http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/80014551?img=0

One thing has always bothered me about men's coats in this period. Where do those big pleats (on either side of the center back vent) come from? The side pleats are easy--there is a seam there, and a pair of buttons and pocket flaps to hide the train wreck of stitches from which they hang. The only thing that makes sense is a big horizontal seam right across the back.

Not terribly obvious, is it? Except for the six sets of weird stitches, (actually close worked buttonholes from the last post.)  At the start of the 18th century, the entire length of the center back opening of coats could have buttons and buttonholes. This one only has six. It is the top pair of decorative buttonholes that hides the seam. Clever little bastards, those tailors.

 Hard to tell if there is any interfacing in the tails of this mid-century coat. It starts to disappear in this period. Go back in time 30 to 40 years and the horsehair padding becomes pretty apparent:

This one has eight buttonholes. The gentlemen of the 1730s loved their poof. M. de Garsault calls it "pannier," like a dress. I chose the goat hair/wool Hymo for my pleats so I could split the difference on these two styles. Stiff, but not fluffy.

Next time, the mystery pleat's inside.

Close Worked Buttonholes

Okay, I lied. A small side-trip before the back pleat returns.

The pocket flaps need four decorative buttonholes. I did some experiments to see how the coat material handles tight stitches. It seems to hold together, but care is required. This is the essence of drunk tailoring: meticulous sewing on sleazy material.

I find worked buttonholes fun, soothing work. Done properly, they look much better than regular ones. I start by marking their location and length with chalk. Period tailors would often put in some long stitches as well (and leave them in, since the buttonhole is decorative anyway.)

Next, take two long stitches on either side of the marking stitches with some heavy thread or cord. Open worked buttonholes are similar, except they have to be outlined with stitches and cut before the long stitches go in. The functional buttonholes on this coat will be open half way--just enough for the buttons.

The buttonholes are two inches long, so I cut two arm lengths of buttonhole twist. The buttonhole stitches are made over the cord, parallel to the "hole," catching some of the material beneath. With the loose weave of the cloth, I had to pull slowly and kind of sideways. 

These close worked buttonholes will come in handy when it's time to hide the big ugly seams above the center back pleats.