Disneyland

A full couple of weeks, these past. Film continues to answer the need for more gritty immersion, even if only for one or two takes. Black powder charges buried in potting soil with cork fragments are safe, but still ring your bell. The air bursts are worse.

Faux soldiers can never come close to the terror experienced in real combat, but the dread of remote detonations, and the concussion is exhausting. Loading on the run and falling are good tests for clothes gear and skills.

 It's nice to relax indoors with a new waistcoat. Fit is excellent, it could be longer. The side vented needed to be shortened a couple of inches. With so many great sites full of talented people, it's easy to become complacent. Living history land is mostly populated by good folks, which makes the appearance of bad apples glaring. Irony is not lost on the drunk tailor when normal 18th century behavior rears it's ugly head.

Sadly, physical altercations are no longer a civil matter. Pain is inspiring. Shunning still seems to work, and having units police up their drunks is pretty efficient. The spirit of 1976 lingers. Women sometimes feel unsafe (or worse.) New ideas are looked down upon. Humans hate change, love routine for routine's sake. Best to inspire young people, charm them away from the creaking edifice that was reenacting.  

Drunk

Helyar's Company of the 7th Regiment of Foot waits. Smoke and shouts drift up the hill towards them. The crash of hundreds of muskets and a ball buzzing off a tree make them forget momentarily how hungry they are. If only the liquor had not run out.

General Cornwallis is concerned, desertions are up, and men are being captured as they forage for whiskey. He knows Greene's army is huge and he needs every man to attack the rebels.

We're on the home stretch of the mid-century waistcoat, there are enough buttons to close it and work on the side seams. Apparently, the back piece was cut for a POW or child. No idea why it is so small. Oh well. Thankfully, there are surviving period waistcoats with pieced side seams. Wearers gain weight, cloth runs short, tailors drink. Since it's not lined there are more seams to whip, but... All of this will be hidden by the coat anyway.

 More potential drunkenness. As with coats, a good deal of fitting happens in the shoulder seams. Since this garment is double-breasted, with lapel linings it is temping to finish the neck seam before assembly. It should work. Sometimes the neck opening humps as seen in the left of this picture. The trick is to remember.

Best to open the turned bits of the neck seam, sew the shoulder seams together, THEN roll the neck seam as one piece, as shown on the right. All that is left is to do up the arm holes and hem the bottom.

For something completely different, it's time to be an officer's servant for an event. Not enough gentlemen with servants.

Another Year

Happy New Year! The holiday was merry and Federal swag-filled, while construction of the Velocipede proceeds apace. Brother Joseph pointed out something excellent on eBay:

These chaps are Italian, of indeterminate age, but could pass for 18th century. Plus they are sharp has hell. All of eight bucks, SCORE! They needed a polish and some oil, the only complaint: the drunk tailor is left-handed. Perhaps some button hole chisels will turn up soon. Thanks, Joseph.

Our sleazy waistcoat is progressing slowly but surely. Cold and darkness makes 23 button holes feel like 700. May have to add the expanding waist seam inserts as well. The black button covers are total conjecture, but fun: gives it a Nazi/White Stripes vibe. While the project pile is deep, it can be hard not to get distracted by something new and quick.

Hammer provided such a distraction. This thing turned out okay, but it's a bit too tight and stiff. Easy enough to fix either of those issues, but further research indicates that surviving early 19th century white silk stocks are for dress up.

There is a horrible, checked, Federal summer suit in our future. One where none of pattern lines up on any of the seams, and all the button covers are exactly the same. The kind that when it shows up in a museum collection you have to wonder.

The only way to improve that ensemble is with  clashing, checked neckware of some kind. Behold:

Courtesy of my Muse at the Rhode Island Historical Society. She also provided cloth that matches. What's not to love about a gigantic seam down the front and badly matched pattern? The tabs appear to be edged in wool tape. The only thing missing from this Federal Period clip-on bow tie is just that. A bow tie.

A wee, pieced-together bow tie can only enhance the awfulness. While we're at it let's make some buckram from scratch.

Pockets

Here is a  finished pocket flap, the interfacing gives it a nice heft, it should close with a thunk when dropped. The tab at top gets back-stitched upside down, on a line between the lowest button on the waistcoat and the vent at back. Turn the flap seam allowance up into the lining and whip it down.

 The pocket opening should be cut slightly smaller than the flap, and  all the edges of the worsted need turning to avoid fraying.

Turn the bottom edge of the pocket bag first and whip-stitch it to the turned edge of the opening bottom. Fold the bag back up and buttonhole-stitch the side edges of the wool pocket cut to the bag back.

Turn the top of the wool pocket opening and whip to the back of the bag. Back-stitch the sides of the bag together to form a pocket. Whip all the edges that don't have selvage. Back-stitch the pocket flap cross the top to hold it down. Repeat all these steps on the other waistcoat front.

Next time, linings.    

Basting and Buckram

First thing to watch with worsted is it may have an inside and an outside. The outside will be slightly fulled, the inside will have a visible weave. A stiffened canvas insert is basted inside this pocket flap. After the edges are whipped down a lining piece, with all of it's edges turned gets sewn to it. Once that's done the basting can be removed.

Here is more Buckram interfacing basted into the waistcoat front. This is the middle, where it transitions to double-breasted. Period waistcoats and coats often included a folded strip of linen on top of this for use as a button stand. As with the pocket flap this will be lined, but with the same red stuff.  The outside of the interfacing gets prick stitched to the worsted to keep it from shifting.

Next time pocket bags and linings.

Sleazy

This little chap turned out well. The fronts of the legs are about 1/4" too long, but we can fix that at a later date. Also, the two-button waistband is annoying. Even one more button on the bearers would take some strain off the fall buttons. Oh well, frugal government contracts. Speaking of which, another way to save money on regular clothing issues is to use cheaper material.

Broadcloth, or just "cloth" is carded and fulled to make it dense, hard-wearing and warm. It holds a cut edge and is very stiff. Perfect for military uniforms that are supposed to last a year or more, cloth is no fun to wear in summer and it isn't cheap. Civilians often switch to worsted wools, or "stuff" when it gets warm. These long staple fiber weaves are plain or twill woven and more open. They often fray when cut but are less expensive.

Time to revisit the mid-18th century to look at an interesting waistcoat design popular with sportsmen. This fine fellow is Francis Burdett of the Markeaton Hunt, circa 1762-63. He and others like him can be found at the unspeakably good 18th Century Material Culture Resource Center. The web page is here, and you should spend hours looking. Markeaton seems to have had a uniform of sorts (why no pockets?) But the red, double-breasted hybrid waistcoat appears elsewhere. It's a similar design to the Regimental coats of the period.

There is room in the collection for another mid-18th century waistcoat, and in true drunk tailor fashion it will be shoddy and made of stuff.