A 1840´s Linen Tailcoat Part 1

Apart from trousers, shirts, waistcoats and collars my husband needed a jacket for our romantic period costume summer meeting. I already made a Frock Coat from quite heavy wool fabric, suitable for cold and rainy days. However, what to do if it´s going to be hot? Years ago, I made a regency tailcoat from wool broadcloth. He never wore willingly, except in the carnival when he was a vampire.
There are other options than broadcloth and that´s linen. I decided to make him a linen tailcoat. I used the Frock Coat pattern and modified as needed, because it hat to fit closer. Fitting quite narrow at the waist I had to add some extra width at the skirt for the hips. This made me some problems with the pockets, but this was my fault. I couldn´t remember how to make a pocket, means a little bit of a black out. Thank god, the pocket flaps cover everything.

 


First, let´s start with the fronts. The front is double breasted with no extra lapel. Therefore, I needed a dart to give the desired shape. At the interlining, I cut out the dart and closed it edge by edge with some cotton underneath to lay flat.


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The ready prepared front with pad-stitched lapel, cotton binding along the edges and roll line.


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Next was to prepare the skirt. On the pictures you can see my ugly pocket, I don´t want to write much about that mess. The problem was to ease in the width of the skirt to fit the fronts along the waistline.


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Fronts and skirts joined.


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I reinforced the back with cotton fabric; that lining ends at waistline. I joined the backs along the center back stopping at the vent. Notched the seam allowance to the end of the stitching and turned in the seam allowances.


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Next I´ll show you the front facing and padding: Part 2