A Jacket for Cycling, A Project Journal for April

A couple of weeks ago, at around 10pm, I got a wild hair to start on a new project...I could feel cold and wet in the air (we got 4-5 inches of wet snow that night), so I had a rain jacket on the brain.  Again.  I do every time it rains, go look at commercial examples and discard them because they don't meet my standards of fit and durability--as well as invariably having hoods, which I detest wearing.

Taken this very morning, in fact, as I double checked the sleeve fit.

 So, I went out, found a few yards of medium brown bull denim, and off white wool in my stash--both of which were from the thrift store--and started drafting, first on paper.  Just a rough sketch of the design idea and proportions.

Featured Garment: Bottle Green Overcoat (1820s?)

And I'm jumping back to the Regency, to share an elegantly plain overcoat or redinote.  This Featured Garment will likely be fairly short.

The victim of my mangled descriptions this time is a wool overcoat from Augusta Auctions, in the style of early frock coats...i.e. a body coat with a waist seam. As it should be, with the given date of the 1820s.  It caught my attention because of the elongated look, and how low the buttons go (which is slightly unusual).  The following is the description from the Auction Site:

Early Front Fall Trousers...Code Name: Hobbit Pants

For the HSM (link to the right, as always) Monochrome challenge, due at the end of July, I decided on a pair of narrow fall, front-fall trousers in white corduroy.

This particular project was actually fun, actually; fairly simple, and new enough to not be boring.  When I ran across a pattern drafting manual by Amanda Jones from 1822, I simply had to make something out of it...and since I both needed a new pair of relaxed pants (which fit well enough in the waist that I wouldn't need a belt), and eventually need to make a pair of narrow front fall trousers to go with my Wanderer Frock coat. So my "Hobbit pants" project was born, as a practice piece.

Research Dump: No 9

Well, that was...fun.  I realized it has been over a year since I assembled a research dump--shame on me.  Even so, there aren't a massive quantity of links, since I haven't been doing true research and reading of academic papers for some time.

This collection covers a wide variety, but are mostly clothing and textile of a variety of periods, including Ottoman Turkish, 18th century, and high medieval.

Odd Things: Woven Tophats

Some time ago, a rather unusual accessory came up for discussion on the HSM group....a top hat, woven of walebone (baleen) and rattan, from the Swedish Museum (made in Stockholm).  So I decided to take a look around and see if I could find more examples; I did.  No others of those particular materials, but several examples woven out of straw, or even willow.  Oddly enough, I'm not finding anything written on them--don't know why.  Neither could I find any fashion plates that /may/ depict them (and no, searching for summer fashions didn't work).

1805.  Met Museum

Fabric Covered Buttons, a la Georgian

UPDATED 3-27-17 with photos using the correct materials.

In the Georgian period (which encompasses Regency), you often see fancy embroidered buttons on various garments--justaucorps, waistcoats, and breeches.  For those of us who prefer plainer garment, there are also plenty of examples of plain ones--especially towards the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th.  Obviously, these are embroidered on cloth...but how do you take the cloth and turn it into a flat button without visible stitches?  It's really not difficult, and how else are you going to have buttons covered in the same silk as your coat or waistcoat.

Mariner's Cuff on a Coat.  1785-1790

Featured Garment; An Early Frock Coat?

Last week we went to 1330s Genoa, with a rather interesting cioppa.  I had a devil of a time deciding exactly where to go this week--I just couldn't seem to find anything that piqued my interest.  Then I remembered a garment which caught my eye months ago (or however long since I first started using pinterest)--and extremely early example of a frock coat.

This coat, from Eastern Europe, dates to 1815--a good five years before the frock coat as we know it is supposed to have come into existence--as popular knowledge has it, anyways.  In reality, it existed on the continent before that--it just took a little longer to reach the shores of merry old England.

Research Dump, No 8

Included in this edition are several links on 16th century clothing, a couple of treatises from the same period, Romani and Chinese clothings, and numerous other subjects.





Notes and Illustrations on Regency Clothing Styles

(I should note that it naturally only covers women's clothing)
http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppbrokil.html


Women's Dress and  Dance of the 16th Century Ottoman Empire
http://wiesenfeuer.ansteorra.org/links/artsandsciences/compilations/kajiracamber/Women%20and%20Dancers%20of%20the%2016th%20Century%20Ottoman%20Empire.pdf


Early 16th Century German Peasant Clothing
Some decent information, but I definitely do NOT agree with some of the author's suggestions on recreating it easily.
https://amiesparrow.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/early-16th-century-german-peasant-clothing.pdf 

Elizabethan House - Robert and Laura Mellin: Clothing and Accessories
A basic overview of Elizabethan clothing.
http://traynedbandes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2-Elizabethan-House-Clothing-and-Accessories.docx.pdf 


Grisone, Federico:Künstlicher Bericht, ... wie die streitbaren Pferd ... vollkommen zu machen 

A German Horsemanship treatise from the end of the 16th Century.  Specifically regarding hard to break horses.
http://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=viewer&bandnummer=bsb00084455&pimage=00001&v=100&nav&l=de