Stotting Part Two

The over cuff is longer than the under cuff, but has about the same diameter. That means it needs to be stretched, and the under cuff compressed to sew it on. Here it is with the edges of the short sides stitched together. Press the puckers out of the seam, and turn it inside out.

Now pull the over cuff, convex-side first, over the under cuff. The under cuff will curl and resist--scrunch it up so 1/8" of over cuff shows equally around the back edge of the under cuff. Match the over cuff seam to the bottom sleeve seam as shown. Use lots of pins and stretch the over cuff while stitching. The mouth of the over cuff should stick WAY past the sleeve opening.

Turn the entire sleeve inside out. Keep pulling until the cuff pops out as shown. Once it is evenly pulled out all the way around, the free edge of the over cuff can be sewn to the sleeve as shown. I'm using my hand to pull it tight.

Now look up inside the cuff, there is a crease previously ironed into the under cuff. Mark the crease with pins all the way around the outside.

CAREFULLY, turn the sleeve and cuff right side out. Pins mark exactly where the finished cuff folds back over the sleeve. Fold, pull the pins out, and iron with lots of steam. One down, one to go.The reduced seam bulk makes a huge difference. Time to add button holes, tape, and buttons.

Oh yeah, and if you accidentally have the sleeve twisted in your lap while you are measuring for buttonholes, and you carefully mark, outline, cut, and whip over a button hole on the INSIDE of the cuff (where it shouldn't be) It is pretty easy to sew the button hole edges closed again after all the stotting practice!

Stotting Part One

Time to put the cuffs on. Henry showed me a cool way to do this called "stotting." The sleeves of a regimental coat in this period should end 1/2" above the wrist joint. This might sound too short, but trust me.

 First: pin the under cuff piece to the sleeve opening, making sure the short edges match the lower sleeve seam. Pin the mouth of the sleeve to the long concave edge of the under cuff. The under cuff must be exactly the same size as the sleeve with no overlap. Pin it so the edges of the under cuff are touching (as shown.)

Now comes the fun part. Carefully sew the short edges of the under cuff together. Don't sew it to the sleeve. The cuffs on this coat will fold down to cover the hands in cold weather. This technique keeps the cuff seam from bulking up as layers are added.

If the long, convex, outside edge of the under cuff doesn't match when done, carefully trim it.

Next: whip stitch the concave edge of the under cuff to the mouth of the sleeve. Try and keep the stitches to within 1/16" of the edge. Once the under cuff is on, roll it down off the sleeve and iron all the seams flat.

The last step is to carefully fold 1/2" of the under cuff into the sleeve, as shown at right, and iron it all the way around. Now the cuff comes right down to the wrist. Next time, the blue over cuff gets added and it becomes a mini lapel: complete with tapes, buttonholes, and buttons.  

Cuffs

The cuffs for the mid-century coat are tiny garments unto themselves. Here they are with one inside out to show the interfacing. You can see there will be four buttons on each to match the pocket flaps.

These babies will be non-functional and stupid large (though not as ridiculous as say the 1740s.) I may reduce the length of the interfacing slightly to have more to turn under, into the sleeve. Next time we start fitting the body.