Category Archives: Romantic Era

A 1830´s Stock Collar for my husband

During the last months I sewed some 1830´s clothes for my husband. He got trousers, skirts, waistcoats, a Frock Coat and a Tail Coat. To be properly dresses just a stock collar was missing. I´ll show you how I made it from silk sateen fabric and inlay, all fabrics came from stock except the buckle.

First, I cut two collar pieces from the inlay, one on the straight, one on the bias. As it was a fusible inlay I didn´t had to pad stitch the pieces together, just fuse with the iron. Now it had the desired stiffness for my collar. Then I covered the inlay with the silk sateen using a catch stitch on the inside.

Next was to cover two pieces of linen for the belts with the sateen and prepare two straps for the buckle on the back.

I attached the belts to the collar with the straps for the buckle underneath.

I placed the belt pieces on top of the collar and basted them to the collar on the center front. Think of additional width needed for the belt when the collar lays around the neck.
For the bow, I lined up the two straps, right sides together, and sewed around. I left an opening and turned inside out after trimming the seam allowances. I pressed the bow strap carefully and closed the opening with some invisible stitches. I made a bow, arranged the loops and ends carefully and fixed everything with some stitches. Then I attached the bow to the collar.
I covered the back of the collar with lining fabric, attached with a felling stitch.

For the inside collar I lined up the collar pieces, right sides together, sewed and trimmed back the seam allowances. I turned the inside out and pressed. I lined up the straps for the collar stand, right sides together. Placed the collar pieces between, leaving a gap at the center front, and stitched along short and upper edges. I trimmed back the seam allowances, turned inside out and pressed. I turned in the seam allowances of the bottom edge of the collar stand and stitched along the bottom edge.
At least I starched and pressed the inside collar, folded the front edges and basted to the inside of the stock collar.

You can download the pattern for the stock collar here, have fun with sewing:

0217_StockCollar1830

Men´s waistcoat 1820-40

As I promised I show you some pics from the making off a men´s 1820-40´s waistcoat.

First the front part with the pockets. The welt pockets are made a little bit different as nowadays. Baste a piece of linen or cotton to the wrong side of the left front, covering the pocket opening. Mark the pocket opening with a basting thread, clearly visible on the right side of the fabric. Cut your welt from fabric, matching the fabric pattern and fold in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, press the edge and reopen. Attach a cotton tape along the fold to the inner half of the welt with a catch stitch. Sew the outer pocket bag to the inner half of the welt using, right sides together, stitch exactly between the marks of the pocket opening and press open the seam allowances.

Place the front on a table with the right side up. From below, line up the edge of the outer welt half with the pocket opening, right sides together. Sew with a reduced stitch length exactly between marks, indicating your pocket opeining. From above, line up the inner pocket bag with the pocket opening, right sides together and sew, starting and stoping about 1/8” (3mm) inside the marks.

Turn the front to the wrong side and cut the fashion fabric in the middle of the stitching lines, cut V-shaped towards the corners. Pull the welt and outer pocket throught the opening to the wrong side and press the bottom edge of the welt carefully. Turn the welt along the fold line, wrong sides together. The welt seams should match up now, but most important is a regular welt on the right fabric side. Baste together the welt layers and pull through the opening to the right side. From the right side, stitch (invisible) in the ditch of the welt seam, joining the layers.

Pull the inner pocket bag to the wrong side and close the pocket, stitching the small triangles to the pockets, press. Finish the welts, after basting the interfacing to the fronts.

Turn the front right side up again and turn in the loose ends of the welt. Sew down the edges with a prick stitch through all layers, make a second row of prick stitches about ¼” (6mm) from the first. Trim back the turned in ends of the welt close to the second row of stitching.

Join the front pieces at the center back, press. Don´t catch the interlining, place the edges of the interlining one above the other to avoid bulk.

Attach a cotton tape a little bit behind the roll line, prick stitch the collar (you can skip this step). Trim back the interlining right behind the sewing line and attach a cotton tape all around the outside edges (Front, bottom and armhole).

Sew on the collar facing and trim back seam allowance, along the collar attach the seam allowance with a catch stitch to the interlining.

Turn inside out and press. Attach the raw edges of the facing to the interlining with a felling stitch.

Take the lining and sew to the front along the armhole, trim back seam allowance and place inside the front parts. Attach the lining with a felling stitch.

As I need the waistcoat for summer, I decided to make single layer back. Join back parts with a flat felled seam, cut straps for the bottom facing, join and turn over. Attach buckle straps.

Join back and fronts, now you have raw edges at the side seams, the back armholes, shoulders and neckline. Cut bias straps, about 2” wide and cast the raw edges with the straps.

Here you see the finished waistcoat with fabric covered buttons.

Next project? A matching frock coat, what else?

Men´s trousers 1840

This year we do again our history Sumer retreat. This time near Leipzig. As costume theme the romatic era would be suitable.

During the last years I made two Dresses for me, just a suit for the Gentleman is missing.

Let´s start with trousers. After some research it was clear I´ll sew checked trousers with a front fly. From 1830-40 front fall trousers became unfashionable. At the back they have a saddle like Jeans, a gusset and straps.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find pictures or anything else about pockets bags. So I decides to make them like Jeans pockets.

Let´s start with the pockets! The back pocket back gets a facing from fashion fabric and is joined to the front pocket back with a French seam.

Sew the front pocket back to the front trousers along the pocket opening, right sides together, trim seam allowances, turn inside out and press.

Sew the fly facing to the left front piece, prepare the buttonhole stand and sew five button holes. Pin the buttonhole stand to inside of the left front edge. Sew together with a curved seam from the right side.

Sew button stand to the right front edge.

Close pant legs and press. Close the crotch seam. Overcast all raw edges.

Insert gusset at the saddle.

For a clean finish the back seams are covered with a curtain.

The waistband is divided into two parts with a curved back edge.

Here you see the back straps with the buckle.

For the hem cut pieces of linen at the bias and baste to the inside along the hemline.

Make button holes at the corners of the pockets, close pockets with small covered buttons.

Finished!

Next time I´ll show you the making of the waistcoat.

19th century mitts

Next summer some friends of mine are going to organize an early 19th century costume ball. Of course a lady needs a pair of gloves to wear with her ball gown. But I don’t like gloves at all, so I decided to make mitts out of modern tights. I´ll show you my first attempt to sew a pair of mitts out of a cheap pair of tights.

First I thought a small size will be perfect to fit my arm, but it seemed to be a little bit too bulky at the wrist, so I had to make them tighter and ad a seam at the hand edge. I sewed all seams with a normal sewing thread and a normal sewing needle by hand.

All seams are sewn quite loose respecting the elasticity of the material. To give more stability to the seams they are sewn twice.

On the whole it worked better than I thought. Next time I´ll try it with tights with a looser pattern.

Making-of my 1830 Dress Part 3 The Skirt

The original skirt is made from georgette, I don´t know if there is a sateen layer underneath, but it looks like.
For the skirt panels I took three times my waist plus 2cm for the underlap at the back. If you are quite thin (thinner than me, my waist measurement with the corset is 78cm) you should take more to reach the desired diameter of the seam.
I sewed togehter the skirt panels first and made a slash at the center back, folded in the raw egdges and stitched them down. Why I didn´t used a seam at the center back? Because so I would have a visible seam at the front side.

I made 7 folds each side, opening to the back, shift the edges to form a curved waistline

Sew the skirt to the bodice. The picture shows how it looks like at the center back.

Trim the seam allowance at the waistline, fold it into the bodice and stitch down, catch only the lining.

Fold in the fabric along the hemline. The skirt should end about 10cm from the floor at the ankle. You would wear ballerina shoes with that dress. I decided to sew my hem with small stitches from the right fabric side, because the original dress has a visible hem stitching line, not even tried to be covered with the trimmings and I was aware the sateen fabric doesn´t tolerate a hem stitch.

For the belt I took one layer of sateen and one layer of cotton fabric, the edges neatend with bias binding. The belt is closed with hooks and sewn eyes. Finally a large bow is attatched.

That´s the finished dress. Excuse the picture but the dress doesn´t fit the dress form quite well and I just made a quick picture of the finished dress to show you.

Go to Part 1 or Part 2

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