The Heat is On

Salem Massachucetts is hot. A good time to don 1804 attire and become an accountant in a West India Goods Store for the Annual Maritime Festival. Since the building is normally an NPS office, visitors are slightly confused when it magically tranforms into a store. More so when Kitty fills it with some tiny fraction of her 19th-century collection that isn't for sale.

At left is the stock throughly sweated with heat applied. It dried in this grotesque shape. Lesson learned, reshape the buckram while still wet.

The Cossacks (too late for 1804) are nearly done. All they need are stirrups to pull the fancy toe cutout down over the shoe. Like Rick James. New Morroco braces with springs are in the planning stages, but more pressing matters intrude.

What Cheer Day nears, and will require a gentlemen's 1799 coat. The traditional black wool of a physician, complete with giant collar and lapels should do. Why not make two coats at once? Fort Dobbs Timeline deserves an accurate Maryland or Delaware Continental who fought in the Carolinas. The 1781 regimental coat is a model of cheapness and expediency. The old veterans were not impressed. Still, USA buttons and better than being naked.

Our WCD character, Dr. Bowen will need breeches and some ruffles on his shirt. Rather than retire the Invincibles trousers, why not convert them to breeches?

The tops of the Cossacks are enough to make a child cry. It's the feeling you get when you open a box in a museum collection and ask "who would wear these?" Can't wait to wear the whole mess.

Drunk(er) Tailoring

Well THAT was fun.

I destroyed my first pair of gaiter-trousers and my favorite shoes, but it was worth it. Not allowed to talk about it. Let's just say I understand why Peter Jackson likes Red cameras so much. Considering I only do living history a few weekends out of the year, I've finally reached a solid year of campaigning and it is time for some new clothes. Even my patches have patches.

Making overalls is a PITA. Trying to keep the seams straight on the legs is tiresome. It turns out I may have been doing it wrong all these years. Take a look at these nicely preserved trousers at the MET. The dating may or may not be right. The outseam is nice a straight, probably follows the selvage. The inseam is where all the fitting takes place. It looks like it meanders quite a bit. Clever.

Perhaps I have been too careful, despite my drunken intentions. Which brings me to terrifying thought: how bad did the British Army look in the 18th century?

Corporal Jones of the 13th Foot was drawn by William Baillie in 1753. His uniform is remarkably rumpled for being on a recruiting party. I'm beginning to think even my level of skill is too good for the King. We know that every soldier was generally entitled to a new coat every year, so making them must have gotten as close to mass production as possible.

Pieces were cut in several sizes economically and quickly, and handed off to poor women to assemble. Not tailors. Here is an interesting bit from the Old Bailey. I'm guessing Melckisideck didn't eat that day. So the faster you make coats the more money you get. Can I bring myself to use four stitches per inch?

This should inspire anyone to take up making 18th century military clothes. If it doesn't get laundered regularly don't waste time with fine stitching. The few surviving originals seem to bear this out: Redcoats looked good at a distance.

Nearly Done.

A bit of inspiration--the March of the Guards to Finchley, by William Hogarth (1750.) George II might not have liked it, perhaps Frederick II had enough of a sense of humor to recognize some truth in the satire.

All the chaos and drunkenness of this work perfectly sums up my feelings toward the Fusilier regimental.  It makes my head hurt. I want it to be over.

Here is the back--fearful symmetry. Ideally the back tapes would have gone on before the lining was in....Only the body is lined.

The pleats on this coat are afterthoughts, tacked down along their entire length.

The cuffs get the same treatment as the lapels. The buttonholes and tapes have similar spacing, four to a cuff. It's heartbreaking to think these coats only lasted a year with the work that went into them.

The lower right corner of the Hogarth painting shows one of the the more common forms of recycling with old coats. The pioneer with the canteen is wearing a forage cap.

I've always wanted one of these. Old coat tails and lapel make a fine hat for fatigue duties. The embroidery is a copy of the Fusilier belt plate engraving. Decoration varied from regiment to regiment, usually just numbers.

Next, brown kersey overalls for winter service.

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!

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.

&%$##*&^%@!

So with the hooks and eyes secured over the form, and all the buttons buttoned this happened. Pinning the side seams makes the inside curve of the lapels so severe that the buttons are now too close together.

Note to self: in future, sew on hooks and eyes BEFORE the buttons. Time to cut all the linen tape holding the buttons and move each down a 1/4". I love sewing.

The original holes in the broadcloth will gradually shrink and be covered by the buttons. Next time: collar and collar buttonholes.

Hooks & Eyes & Bays

As seen here, three evenly-spaced hooks and eyes hold the regimental coat closed. The bottom pair lines up with the fourth buttonhole in the lapel. The coat seams are pinned together, inside-out, on the form. The now familiar linen tape holds the lapel buttons on, sewn to the canvas interfacing.

The ends of the hooks and eyes should be even with the fold in the lapel, and strongly stitched to the interfacing. The buttonhole tapes on the lapels SHOULD line up when the coat is hooked.

Here is a closeup of a pair. I purchased these from William Booth Draper, great folks with a fantastic selection of 18th-century stuff. To cover this mess, British military coats were lined with Bay (a loosely woven plain wool,) for nearly 300 years. Prior to 1768 it was the same color as the coat facing. After, it was white or buff.  The front linings have separate skirt pieces, and since the pocket flaps on the coat are fake, there are internal pockets in the lining waist seam.

Here is the slit between the skirt lining and top, where the pocket will go. Once again, this will be a welt-style pocket. I'm excited to be using the Kochan Phillips Bay for the first time. It frays like mad, so building pocket welts out of it is a challenge. Once the pocket bag and the welt are done, the front edges of the lining are turned and pinned over the lapel edges.

The folded edge of the lining is overhand stitched about 1/8" in. Only the heads of the hooks and eyes peek out. For now, the raw edges of the lining are pinned around the neck opening, shoulders, sides, and bottom of the coat.  Back pleats practically vanish from enlisted coats in this period, but the lining can be folded and stitched overhand to what is left on the sides. The top of the pleat is left open until the side seams can be fitted and the pleat folded.



Here is what the finished pocket looks like:

Oh yeah, and for the first time EVER I made two left coat linings, put in a backwards pocket and everything! See what happens when you get too comfortable? Time to cut out a bunch of back-stitching and try again.

This is drunk tailoring at its finest.

The Regimental Coat

The 18th-century soldier's coat was his pride and joy. The tactics of the period called for close-order, fighting elbow to elbow, so it had to be snug. It must not interfere with the handling of the firelock either, but it also had to be comfortable.

Usually, redcoats could expect a new garment issue every year, which they paid for through stoppages. Contractors supplied the regiment with coats in a number of sizes, loosely assembled. Soldiers who who were tailors in civilian life, were then exempt from duty to measure and fit the regiment.

After a year of sun, rain, snow, and wear--the previous year's coat would be shortened, turned inside out, stripped of tapes, and reassembled for fatigue duties. Soldier's wives who were on the regimental roles, were entitled to wear their husband's old coat.

The late 18th-century Royal Fusilier coat followed a standard pattern--madder red broadcloth for enlisted men, with Royal Blue facings. the pocket flaps were decorative, and the body was lined with white wool bay. The skirts could be turned and there are two epaulettes edged with lace.

The first step is to back-stitch the under lapel to the coat front, as close to the edge as possible. Leave 1/8" free to attach the collar at the top, and flip the fronts over. 

 Hemp canvas serves as interfacing, this need only be tacked in place on the inside. 

Pin the blue over lapel to within 1/8" of the under lapel outside edge. I'm using natural linen thread for construction stitching. This is what the top of the lapel looks like from the inside.

The last step, is to fold the blue cloth over the front coat edge and stitch it to the interfacing
.  

Next time, buttonholes get added to the lapels, and we look at the 7th Regiment of Foot's unique lace pattern.