Why yes, I do buckle all my own swashes!

Er, swash all my own buckles? Either way, I'm just happy to have finally made the fantastic pirate coat I've always wanted! 

I bought these red and gold damask curtains at a thrift store years ago and knew that I wanted to make them into some kind of fabulous floor length coat. I also knew that my skills then weren't quite up to the task, so I put them in my stash and waited. After making a shapeless coat that basically only had three pattern pieces in the Beginning Tailoring class at Cañada College last winter, I was ready to move onto something more complicated. I figured that this would be the perfect chance to have the guidance of an expert while making my dream coat. Unfortunately, coronavirus had other plans for the world, and it turned out that instead of working alongside classmates with an instructor at the giant cutting tables at the college, I was going to be googling a lot of things and essentially learning to tailor on my own. Thank goodness for YouTube (cue the Schuyler sisters singing "How lucky we are to be alive right now!"). 

I really appreciated that this class made us document every step of our work; usually I just sort of make things up as I go along and then attempt to recall how long it took and what I did. It's ironic that even though I'm a science teacher and meticulous details are supposed to be my thing, I tend to be more loosey-goosey in my sewing. Anyway, our professor required us to write up a list of steps, then document all the time we spent on each step. We also had to do a sketch (beforehand, so that we could check how well our final garment matched up...as opposed to my usual method, which is to make the garment first and then sketch what it looks like), write up a list of all materials and costs, and even record the sewing machine settings and thread type/color. 

The first step our professor required was a paper fitting, just to make sure there weren't any glaring issues with our patterns. Since mine was a frankenpattern of three different Big 4 patterns, I begrudgingly did this step (even though I thought it was silly in the previous tailoring class), then moved on quickly to the muslin. I know I'm very fortunate to be almost exactly the measurements of a Big 4 size 10 in the torso, so there wasn't much I needed to change. I made my typical pattern corrections: wider shoulders, longer sleeves, SBA, swayback adjustment, narrow back...but I wish I'd narrowed the waist and back a little more, since it's not as fitted as I would like, even though it is meant to be outerwear. 

We are required to make one hand-padstitched collar for this class. Normally we would get to see our professor demo this in class, but instead I watched Bernadette Banner's video tutorial featuring Royal Black Couture to learn how to do this. It took a little bit of doing to get used to the rhythm of all the diagonal stitches, and my stitches still aren't the neatest, but after steaming it I'm really pleased with how well it holds its shape. 

It's really incredible how much goes into making a structured coat or jacket. I used fusible Armo-Weft interfacing on all my fashion fabric pieces to add some body to the floppy curtain fabric, and this also helped prevent some of the fraying that this weave is prone to. In order to help the garment hang better and strengthen the back during movement, I added a back stay. And since this is a pirate coat, what better fabric to use than this (100% cotton, tightly woven and washed multiple times) map-print bed sheet? Secret treasure maps hidden in one's clothing for the win! In the front, I cut out a piece of horsehair canvas and basted on a couple layers of batting to make a chest piece. This fills in the hollow that can occur between the shoulder, arm, lapel, and bust area and helps the whole garment lie more smoothly. To help stabilize the edge of the lapel, I also hand-stitched 1/4" wide cotton twill tape butting up against the stitching line. In hindsight, I'm not sure that this was necessary since my lapel isn't cut on the bias (the way a typical blazer lapel would be), and the whole thing was topstitched anyway. 

I used to only set in sleeves with the two-rows-of-gathering-stitches method, but that never worked really well for me and I always got weird puckers. This time, I tried the method of gathering the sleeve cap with a piece of stretched-out fleece, and it worked beautifully! The thickness of the fleece keeps the fashion fabric from making actual puckers, and then once it's set in, you can just push the fleece into the sleeve cap to act as a sleeve head instead of having to sew one in by hand. SO NEAT. I love all-in-one steps. Gertie's video demonstrates the whole process here, but instead of using mohair or lambswool, I just used a strip of scrap polar fleece, which is obviously cheaper and easier to find. After setting in the sleeve, I also put in a handmade shoulder pad (just three layers of thin cotton batting basted together). I remember the first time our professor talked about shoulder pads, I was so skeptical; I just kept thinking of the massive 1980s shoulder pads. The nice thing about handmade ones, though, is you can use as many layers of batting as you want to make it thinner or thicker, and it really does help the whole garment hang more nicely. Consider me a shoulder pad convert!

For the skirt of the coat, I waffled a bit about whether I really wanted to make it floor-length. A floor-length half-circle skirted coat would definitely allow for the most dramatic flouncing and swanning about, but it would also be impractical and take forever to hem by hand. But then I realized that I had enough fabric to make it floor length, so in the interest of not leaving a bunch of unnecessary extra fabric in the stash, I decided to just go for the floor length version. To visually break up the expanse of red and gold fabric, I put some welt pockets with flaps in. The last time I made a pirate coat, my pocket flaps were fake, and I regret not having functional pockets. Not making the same mistake this time! Since I had a waist seam, I decided to go for another trick I learned from Bernadette Banner: I added a twill tape stay from the top of the pocket bag to the waist seam. This will help support the pocket and keep it from sagging when I put things in. 

The rest of the construction was pretty straightforward, if tedious. Lots of topstitching to help hold the velveteen facing, upper collar, cuffs, and pocket flaps in place, since I didn't want to press it too much, then all the hand sewing: I catch-stitched the hem of the skirt and sleeves, then slipstitched the lining to create a jump hem. 

 

I had originally entertained ideas of having the front lapel be "reversible," so that it could flip closed to be a double breasted coat, or stay buttoned back to show the velveteen facing. I even took a hand-sewn buttonhole class with that in mind, but in the end my samples were still too messy and the idea of doing twelve of them was just...no. Besides, I like the contrast of the red velveteen; without that showing, the front of the coat is just too much damask and the collar and cuffs look a little out of place. So rather than make ugly buttonholes, I just permanently sewed on the buttons. To close the coat, I just used a giant hook and eye. Joann's only carried white ones, so I used a combination of red Sharpie and brown fabric marker to color it dark red to (somewhat) match the fabric. 

Summary:

Pattern: I used the collar from Simplicity 2333, the cuffed sleeve from Butterick 6602, and the skirt from McCalls 6819, then frankenpatterned the last two together to make a shoulder-princess-seam bodice, that I then extended past the center front so that it could flip back to make the lapel. The slant welt pocket with a flap was modeled after the one in this very helpful Waffle Patterns tutorial, but just rotated to be more horizontal than vertical. 

Fabric: The main fashion fabric was curtains that I thrifted at least four years ago, a surprisingly nice 60/40 poly-cotton red and gold damask. Once I picked apart the seams, I ended up with three 40"x88" panels. The red cotton velveteen (I used about 1/3 yard) was from the college's free shelf, a place where students can pick up other people's destashed fabrics. The lining was two different secondhand sheets; the torso was a microfiber with a faint swirl pattern, and the skirt was a cotton sateen. 

Notions: Armo-Weft fusible interfacing from The Sewing Place, then the cotton twill tape, horsehair canvas, and metal buttons were all already in my stash. 

Total cost: $20 for the curtains + $4 for the sheet + $18 for the interfacing (but with lots leftover) + $6 for the patterns + $5 for the bulk bag of buttons ages ago + $3 for thread = $53 total. Of course, once you factor in the 57 hours, even if I paid myself a measly only-slightly-more-than-CA-minimum-wage $15/hr, this coat is worth almost $1000. And this is why bespoke clothing made at a living wage is so expensive. Good thing sewing is my superpower?

Would you make this again? No, because I don't need two pirate coats. TBH, I'm not sure I needed *one* pirate coat, but hey, it's 2020, treat yo'self. 

First worn: Just to take pictures, because we aren't going anywhere, since, you know, global pandemic. 

Final thoughts: When I think back to when I first started sewing, I was pretty much allergic to anything involving hand-sewing and would avoid it at all costs. Thankfully, I got over that, and now I actually enjoy the process of slowly and methodically catching mere threads at a time as I invisibly stitch hems. That, and the whole fussy tailoring process, was actually really fun and you can't argue with the results. I can see how people get addicted to tailoring and/or jacket-making. Unfortunately, I don't see myself indulging in this process too often, as I have too many demands on my time and projects on my bucket list to allow for such slow sewing. Still, I'm really glad to have finally checked off one of those projects on the list, as well as moved some fabrics out of the stash!

When I had Mr. Cation take pictures for me, I of course had to wear my over-the-top tricorn with the coat, since it's all trimmed in red and gold. Then, to my chagrin, he said that the hat+coat combo made me look just like Captain Morgan. I had no idea that he was even a thing, but once I got over the fact that I accidentally cosplayed a cheap rum mascot, I of course had to do a pose with my foot up on one of our barrel planters. 

Slytherin Gibson Girl Undergarments

There are certain tenets of historical costuming that everyone knows, like always put on your shoes before your corset, or don't choose polyester to make your ren faire outfit unless you want to pass out from heat exhaustion. Probably the most important one, though, is to always get your undergarments squared away, including the corset or stays, before making the pretty stuff that goes on top. Which is why, when I decided to make a Slytherin Gibson girl outfit, I started with the shirtwaist and then backtracked to the undergarments without ever having made or acquired an appropriate S-bend corset. And when I say undergarments, I really mean middle garments, because I made a corset cover, petticoat, and bum pad, not a chemise and drawers. Can it really even be called a corset cover if it's not covering a corset? Well, you know what they say: you gotta know what the rules are so you can break them, or some such nonsense.

Case in point: you're supposed to sketch your goal look before making the outfit so that you know what you're aiming for. I drew this after I made everything because I forgot that it was required for my assignment. 

In Canada College fashion department classes, besides the regular homework and the final outfit (of which the shirtwaist is the top half), we usually have to also turn in a lab garment. This is just another full outfit (covering an entire dress form, so a top and a skirt, or a dress) that demonstrates the skills we are learning, so we have to include the quarter- and full-scale patterns with the garments to show how we manipulated the basic sloper. At first, I had grand plans to make a tailored jacket to go on top, but that would 1) not be a complete outfit covering the dress form, and 2) take more time than I have to do it well. I think I'm going to save that for when I take Advanced Tailoring at some point in the future. In the interest of making a related but faster/easier lab garment, I decided to make a corset cover (basically, a sleeveless top that goes over the corset to disguise the hard lines of its edges) and a petticoat.

From here. 

I'm so glad that there are a lot of images floating around Pinterest that show pattern pieces or drafts for how to make a corset cover; that made it easy to manipulate the sloper to "match" the historical pieces. I also looked at a lot of extant corset covers (thank you to the Met for allowing me to just search "corset cover" and not the usual generic "undergarments" because that really made it a lot easier than having to sort through thousands of other kinds of undergarments) to get an idea for what kinds of variations were permissible. You know, so that I could then ignore them and do my usual "ehh, that's close enough" thing. I shifted the bust dart to the waist and then converted that dart to gathers, and converted the back darts to gathering at the neckline. The peplum was made by putting together the top sections of the skirt sloper to take out the darts, almost like making a skirt yoke, so as to keep it low profile when tucked into the petticoat.

Quarter-scale pattern work.

The finished corset cover. 

The back! Compare to this one from The Met, which is looser. 

The front closes with buttons, plus a hook and bar at the waist and a ribbon at the top. I decided to go Bernadette Banner and make hand-worked buttonholes...and let's just say that it's a good thing these will be under the shirtwaist. I still enjoyed the process more than making machine buttonholes, though, so it was still a net positive.

For the petticoat, I referenced the excellent material collected on Sew Historically and ended up doing what were basically curved trapezoids that gathered at the waist with a drawstring, with the ruffle being just a long rectangle gathered to the hem of the trapezoids. Ideally I would have had lace at the ruffle seam, and probably some tucks to help hold out the ruffle more, but in the interest of time, I left it plain.

I'm glad the historically accurate finish for the waist is so simple: slap on some bias tape to make a casing, and no need to even add a placket or closure to the opening.

I used the rolled-hem foot on my machine to finish all the yards of hem. 

Since I don't have an S-bend corset, nor do I plan on getting one just for this ridiculous little project, it was imperative that I have a bustle pad to help get closer to the right silhouette. I just sketched out a little curved semi-circle shape like the one in this historical patent, cut it out of muslin and then stuffed it with Costco bear innards (one of my students gave one to SHB#1 without my prior knowledge/consent, so I've been slowly deflating it every time I need stuffing) and sewed on a piece of twill tape for a waist tie. Once again, Bernadette Banner's video was very helpful, even if I mostly didn't do what she did.

My hair has gotten ridiculously long (I haven't cut it since getting pregnant with SHB#2, which was three years ago, so it's down to the small of my back) so I figured I would give the Gibson girl hairstyle a try. I used the black pudding plushie I made nine years ago as a hair rat, then used oh, a hundred or so bobby pins to secure my hair over it. I think it worked fairly well for a spur of the moment hairstyle!

Of course, I realized *after* I did my hair that I was wearing a t-shirt and not a button-up shirt. Rather than take it off over my head to change, I had to awkwardly shimmy it off over my hips. Good thing it's just an old work shirt from Mr. Cation, so it doesn't matter that the neck hole got all stretched out! 

So here's what it all looked like together:

Oh hai, I'm the Chinese Camille Clifford knock-off. 

My hair was falling down in the back. Looks like a hundred bobby pins wasn't enough. 

Nice rounding out of the bum area provided by the little bustle pad!

And why are all these pictures so awkwardly cropped? Because the small human beings were entranced by Mommy's funny hair and clothes and were hovering around.

Summary

Pattern: Self-drafted, based on historical pattern pieces/drafting directions

Fabric: For the corset cover, I used a leftover piece of thrifted white cotton sateen sheet (the rest of the sheet went to a Princess Leia costume for a friend). I dyed it with coffee to get it match the lace. The petticoat is a (unfortunately) polyester microfiber sheet in a pale mint green that somebody gave me "because you like sewing with sheets, right?" I used it because it fits the Slytherin color scheme, and all my other sheets were too patterned or earmarked for other projects already.

Notions: Three very anachronistic clear buttons for the corset cover, and a hook for the waist closure. I ran out of bars so I made a thread bar for the first time! The lace for the top is from a vintage fair I went to eight years ago, so I'm glad I finally got a chance to use it. The bias tape for the petticoat drawstring casing is from my school librarian's neighbor's destash, and the drawstring itself is cut off of an old bathrobe.

Hours: A couple hours for drafting, a couple for cutting out, 1.5 hours for sewing the petticoat, and probably four for the corset cover. Total: let's just say 14.

How accurate is it? The corset cover should be made with thinner fabric and probably should have a drawstring at the waist, too. The petticoat should probably be made with stiffer fabric and have more lace, tucks, and ruffles.

Total cost: The fabrics were all stash, given to me, or leftover from other projects, so I'm going to say $5 when counting the little bit of lace, cotton sheet, and buttons. And once again, I didn't buy anything new!

Final thoughts: The corset cover is a little tight in the armscye and bust area, so I'm thinking of going in and adding a little triangular wedge at the side seam. Again, we're theoretically not designing garments for ourselves, but for a mannequin, so I'm not surprised, but I would like it to be a little more comfortable to wear. I think once I do that and get a blousier fit, I'll be pretty pleased with the overall "ooh, I'm in my historical undahwears!" look though!

Old-timey filter!

Flat Pattern Class

In this unprecedented time of #canceleverything, I am grateful for the things that have not been canceled. I've missed out on a historical dance, a historical tea, and a cookie exchange with historical costuming friends, as well as several birthday parties. My school's play, A Little Princess, for which I was doing historical costumes (sense a theme here?), was also canceled. What *is* still happening, though, is the Flat Pattern Class I'm taking at Canada College. Of course, it's been moved online, but I'm glad that I happened to be taking a class more suited to distance learning than say, tailoring or fashion illustration. Our professor is still showing how to do pattern manipulations on Zoom, and we are emailing pictures of our patterns and garments. Obviously, we don't all have mannequins on which to display or test our garments, but it's working fairly well, all things considered.

But back up a little: if you don't know what flat pattern manipulation is, it's where you take a basic sloper pattern (plain fitted bodice + sleeve + straight skirt with darts in "standard" places) and by shifting darts around, adding fullness, and contouring, can totally change the pattern pieces to make anything you want. I realized after the class started that I'd basically already been doing this to a lot of my TNT patterns in order to get the style lines I wanted for various costumes, but it was nice to learn it "officially" so that I could pick up on the little tidbits of information I missed as a self-taught sewist. Things like the industry standard for how far to back dart tips off from the apex (instead of my usual "ehh, that looks about right!"), or the proper way to add fullness (slashing and spreading at multiple points, then truing the stitch line, instead of my haphazard scooting the pattern piece over until it looked right...are you sensing a theme here, too?). I confess I do get a little impatient sometimes about the pace of the class, because I feel like all these manipulations are obvious, but then I have to remind myself to take a deep breath because not everyone taking the class has been doing this for years. Teachers really do make the worst students sometimes.

Anyway, so one of our assignments was to make a top with a sleeve of some kind and a collar that had a closure, and show the pattern manipulation work that went into it. I didn't want to make some variation of a cutesy Peter Pan collar on a button up shirt with puff sleeves, which which is what a lot of people went with. So I started brainstorming...and coming off of my mourning for the Victorian costumes that I made for A Little Princess that would never be worn, I decided that I was going to make a turn of the century, early 1900s-style blouse, with a high stand collar, bishop sleeves, and a full gathered front, pouter-pigeon look. And as I looked at the fabrics available to me in my stash (lots of gray, green, and black), I decided that I was going to go all in and make myself a historical Slytherin costume. The final garments for this class have to include a top and a skirt (or an entire dress...basically it has to cover a dress form so that it's dressed "decently"), and if I made a top for this assignment, then I could just make a skirt to complete the final outfit. Was I making a lot of extra work for myself, drafting such a complicated outfit? The answer is yes. Did I care? No. I'm using all my Canada College classes as an excuse to indulge in my love for historical fashion (see Exhibit A, Fashion Illustration classes, and Exhibit B, Tailoring Class).

Here's what my quarter scale work looked like. We're supposed to work out our designs in quarter scale first so that the professor can check our work, then we make the full-scale pattern and mock it up. I didn't bother with a mock-up and just went straight for fashion fabric, because 1) we're designing for a standard size 8 mannequin, which is basically my size so I have a fairly good idea how things should look/fit, and 2) my fashion fabric is thrifted sheets, so no big loss if it doesn't work out. I did dress it up more with some stash lace, which was so shifty that I had to hand baste it all in place before I could start sewing, so that was also obviously an excellent time-saving decision in this time of extra work due to home-schooling.

I'm pretty pleased with how centered I got the lace motifs!

I think the side profile has the right kind of poofy pigeon-breast look. 

Oops, Cecily's skirt, my stand-in until I make the real one, is slightly off-center. It's a thrift store find that used to be a too big, 90s-tastic, empire-waisted, tea-length, burnout-velvet dress, so I cut off the top portion and redid the top edge with a petersham ribbon facing to make it into a floor-length skirt.

The back closes with hooks and bars, as do the sleeve cuffs, mostly because I had lots of them leftover from our anniversary trip to the UK, where I found a vintage pack of a hundred at a charity shop. I've gotten a lot better/faster at sewing them on now, but I still don't like doing it and mine aren't particularly neat. But they're all hidden, and black on black is hard to see, so I think ultimately the pragmatic Slytherin thing to do is to get them done functionally and save all the agonizing over perfection for when Voldemort is actually watching the parts that are actually showing.

More Slytherin secrets: the inside seams aren't finished. 

I had to look up how to finish the sleeve placket because I haven't done one in oh, at least five years. 

Summary

Pattern: Self-drafted, but based on period illustrations/patterns like the one below.

Source: the Original Pre-1929 Historical Patterns tumblr is a treasure trove.

Fabric: Half of a full-size flat sheet in gray cotton sateen, thrifted and leftover from drama costume making, for the main blouse fabric. The yoke was overlaid in black lace from a 1/2-yard remnant that I bought from Joann's years ago. I don't know the fiber content anymore, but it's definitely synthetic. For the cuff and collar lace overlays, I used scraps from a remnant pack that I bought at the Dark Garden trunk sale years ago. The strip of black fabric for back closure was from another thrifted cotton sateen sheet scrap, and the bias tape binding at the hem is silk dupioni leftover from my Ursula bustier. I'm really pleased with how I've been able to use all leftover pieces of fabric from my stash for this!

Notions: Interfacing for the collar, cuffs, and back closure, pieced together from the leftover of my tailoring class coat, and souvenir hooks and bars

Hours: A couple hours each for drafting and cutting, another hour of hand-basting lace, maybe five hours for actual sewing, and then another hour of hook and bar sewing, so let's say 11 hours total.

How accurate is it? Like everything else I do, not really: a cotton shirtwaist would need to be in thinner material, and obviously synthetic laces are right out, but I tried to get the overall impression of the look right? I think the thickness of the sheet fabric prevents the gathers from falling as nicely as they should, but my pattern pieces are pretty good I think.

Total cost: It's made from so many little scrappy leftover bits, it's hard to say, but I would say definitely less than $10.

Final thoughts: It's hard not to focus in on the one mistake I know I made: I cut the center front piece wrong, so there's something wonky going on in the middle. Plus, the stiffness of the sheet fabric makes for an awkwardly puffy-looking blouse (as opposed to period-accurate puffiness), so I feel like I should go back and redo it. That would involve A LOT of seam ripping though, so I may wait until the full ensemble is done to see if it still bothers me enough to warrant fixing it. I am hoping that once I finish everything else (skirt, belt, and Eton jacket/bolero-y thing), the overall look will be good enough that I won't feel like I need to.

Fingers crossed!

I'm Part of the #ADCapeCult Now!

I've loved American Duchess for a long time, from their gorgeous historical shoes to the very helpful blog chronicling the making of various items of historical clothing, the accessibility of their Simplicity patterns and their informative Fashion History podcast. Somehow it escaped my notice that they had a Patreon page, but then all these costumers I admire and follow on IG were posting about making this 1912 wrap cape from a free pattern by AD. So now, a week of naptime/post-bedtime sewing later, I have a cape and am a patron of American Duchess!

I actually had this cape pinned ever since participating in the VPLL 1912 Project years ago, so of course I had to make it. It seemed like most IG-ers were either making neutral gray/black/brown versions, and a few people made capes in their Hogwarts house colors. I knew I wanted to go vivid, and I had a red brocade tablecloth that I got at a thrift store several years ago that I actually meant to make into a cape...but I'm so not a Gryffindor. In fact, when I took a Sorting Hat quiz that tells you what percentage of each house you are, I think I got something along the lines of 67% Slytherin and 33% Ravenclaw, and zero percent Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. In other words, if you want someone to learn a lot of information and then use it for their own ambitious ends, while not caring about other people or the right thing to do, then apparently I'm your person. *insert laugh-crying emoji here* I think I had a genuine existential dilemma for five minutes about making a red cape when I'm so not a Gryff, but in the end I decided I wanted a red cape too much, and  since I was lining it in black satin, I could just call it a Fire Nation cape. Not that entire fictional countries must match up to Hogwarts houses, but I really do think the Fire Nation (as evidenced by its royals) is the most Slytherin nation in ATLA. Nerdy crossover fanning aside, though, I'm so glad I went with the saturated dark red, both because that's one of my favorite colors to wear, and because if you're going to make an impractical historical cape, you might as well go the whole way and make it an impractical color too?

The AD pattern is done on a tiny grid, like Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion books. When I was making JA patterns, I enlarged them by drawing on the back of wrapping paper that was printed with a 1-inch grid. I don't have any gridded paper anymore, so I scaled up the pattern by plotting it on medical paper (which is very thin and see-through) laid over my gridded self-healing cutting mat. It took a couple hours (with lots of interruption from kids, so YMMV), then another couple of hours to plan the layout on my tablecloth and cut the pieces. Somebody on IG pointed out that the shoulder seam notch on the cape piece didn't make sense grain-wise, and many people pointed out that the cape was two inches too short on the back piece when you walked the back-cape seam. Putting together these two pieces of information, I decided to rotate the cape piece back two inches: this makes the hem line up and also puts the grainline perpendicular to the floor when worn. Other than that, I didn't have any issues with making up the garment. The darts did take forever to mark and pin, and my polyester fabrics were tricky to press well without getting a weird shine (thank you, silk-organza press cloth and wooden half-dowel), especially on the collar. I also decided to make the cape theoretically reversible, so that meant changing up the collar fabrics and putting the contrast piece on both sides. Hemming the back piece at the end also took a couple of tries before I got the tablecloth and the satin lining to hang right together. To add some additional visual interest to the cape, I decided to add little chain tassels to the collar corners to mimic the buttons at the shoulders on the original cape. The cape is secured at the ends of the wrap pieces with hooks and eyes.

I seriously love this tablecloth. 

Annnnddd...flipped!

And worn flipped. 

The finished cape is just delightfully full and twirly and swooshy and good for dramatically storming about. If I were Snape (because a chemistry teacher is just a step away from potions professor, right?), I could flounce about most pleasingly! My only regret is not checking the shoulder fit before cutting and sewing: with my wide shoulders, the only way to get the shoulder seam to not sit obviously too far in toward my neck (and therefore make the cape hang funny) is to wear the wrap portion too loose. It's not the end of the world (that would be coronavirus), but I just wish I'd thought to check. It's been so long since I've sewn a new pattern that I forgot what issues I usually need to adjust for.

Why is red so hard to photograph in the only somewhat-still-lit corner of our backyard when we sneak out to quickly snap some photos while the kids have their half hour of screen time? Oh wait, I think I just answered my own question...

Summary:

Pattern: the American Duchess 1910s Wrap Cape pattern, free on their Patreon page

Fabric: a thrifted dark red poly-cotton brocade tablecloth, and black polyester satin from a friend's destash for the lining. I'm really pleased that I was able to make this suddenly-jumped-to-the-head-of-the-sewing-queue project entirely from stash materials.

Notions: three sets of hooks and eyes from a charity shop that I got on one of our anniversary trips to the UK, and two chain tassels that used to be earrings that I got at a clothing exchange.

Hours: Five for prepwork (scaling up the pattern, layout planning and cutting, pinning darts), then maybe another three for sewing and an additional hour for evening out the hem, sewing hooks and eyes, and adding tassels, for a total of nine hours.

How accurate is it? My fiber content is obviously anachronistic, but in terms of general look and "passing," I'd say pretty good!

Total cost: A whopping $5 for the tablecloth!

Final thoughts: How can you not love a cape? It's impractical, especially with young kids who see such a giant expanse of fabric as basically a giant napkin, and of course there's the fact that I made outerwear from non-breathable fabrics right as the weather is heating up, but I regret nothing. I'm so thankful that AD put out this pattern at this time, and I'm glad I can support their business even a little bit by being a patron.