Sideless Surcoat - Historical Sew Monthly Stashbusting Challenge

Building on the generic Medieval fantasy costume that I started working on last month, I made up a relatively straight-forward sideless surcoat.  Went the easy route and again brought out the Burda 7977 for this instead of using one of any number of fabulous tutorials that are out there.  The goal here was to bang something out quickly so that I could show off the kirtle at Figments & Filaments here in Kansas City next month.

I was already planning to avoid buying anything new for this project, so it fit in nicely with the Historical Sew Fortnightly Monthly challenge for March which was "Stashbusting".  I found a five yard section of wool suiting that had a subtle brown and tan twill weave to it that I picked up at a steep discount eons ago with the notion that surely I could use it for something.  Thems dangerous words right there.  Well, to make it a little less 'shiny suit' and a little more Fourteenth Century, I serged the raw edges and dumped the lot of it into the washing machine on warm, and dried it on medium heat.  This resulted in an every so slight bit of felting which softened the overall hand and color nicely.  The contrasting was done in black silk velvet that was leftover from my Queen of Hearts project, and plus the thread, that's all there is to it.

Lol.  My neighbors must think we're so weird.

Not sure why it's riding up like that in the back.
Must have caught on the belt I'm wearing over the kirtle.

Another shot at that paternoster and the decorative edging on the sleeves of my kirtle.

You can almost tell in the close up shot above, but for the velvet, I just laid out the pattern pieces and cut strips about four inches in from the arm hole openings.  The velvet was sewn to the WRONG side of the arm openings, then folded to the outside, encasing the seams.  I then top-stitched about 1/4" from the edge, then again about 3" in from the edge and trimmed off the excess.  The top stitching largely gets lost in the pile of the velvet, so I didn't think it detracted from the historical look too much.  To finish those raw cut edges, I just used black silk thread to whip stitch and short intervals all the way around.  The collar and hemline were treated in much the same way

HSF 14: Paisley & Plaid - 1920s Flat Cap

Since I knew that I'd be well and truly occupied with Costume College this weekend, I got a quick and easy item out of the way for the next HSF challenge a few weeks in advance.  Behold, the early 20th century man's flat cap (part the second).

The hat matches the plaid lined Norfolk jacket that I finished for my honey back in January.  The hat I'd originally made was a touch too small and I had inserted the lining inside out (but I'd run out of time to remake it until now).

The original attempt at a flat cap for the 1920s Joker was made out of the plaid gauze flat lined to linen, then lined with polyester lining fabric.  For this one, I went with a more coordinated match to the suit.  

What the item is: man's flat cap
The Challenge: Paisley & Plaid
Fabric: wool/poly suiting, plaid cotton gauze lining, a few scraps of interfacing for the brim.
Pattern: loosely based on whatever tutorials I could find on a cursory google search.
Year: 1920s
Notions: just the thread to hold it all together
How historically accurate is it? I'd give it a 6/10.  The look is there, but it was not based on any particular extant piece.
Hours to complete: 3
First worn: at the KCCG's Friday Night Jazz Dinner
Total cost: I'm calling it zero, since it's assembled with scraps left over from the Joker's Norfolk jacket project. Even then, it's only a few dollars worth or materials.

HSF 9: Black & White - 1920s Accessories

I didn't really have any projects on the to do list that would work with both black AND white, so I had to split it up a bit.  It turns out I had LOTS of small and medium projects that were one or the other.  So this fortnight was all about getting some of those smaller projects off the list.  The first thing that I did was focus on projects that would complete an outfit for my chartreuse leopard print charmeuce 1920s dress.

First up was a hat to kind of round out the outfit.  I've been on an ultra-short hair kick lately, and that's been making it where I've had to get pretty creative figuring out what to do with my head when I costume.  The cloche hat is awesome because it totally covers the head.  So not only do I not have to do my hair, it's completely irrelevant what it looks like.

What it is: cloche hat
Fabric: black wool felt and dark blue silk habotai for lining
Pattern: http://mymagicmom.com/cloche-hat-tutorial/, modified to add in another triangular panel to the crown, up-size for an adult head and seam allowances added to allow for a lining.
Year: 1920s
Notions: polyester (construction) and silk (top stitching/embellishment) threads. 1 yard of 1 inch wide black silk satin thread.
How historically accurate is it? I'd say pretty close.
Hours to complete: 4, including adjusting the pattern to fit a grown up head.
First worn: not yet, but this is part of completing my 1920s outfit, so I hope to find an event to break that out for soon.
Total cost: < $10 Everything was from materials on hand, even though I'd marked that ribbon for for tying back my honey's 18th c hair.

I didn't have any black habotai laying around, so I used a bit of the dark blue left over from the MIL's
Acadian short cloak.  A bit of fudging on the challenge, but a white lining would not have looked nice at all.

What it is: poncho
Fabric: 1.75 yds of 51" wide black silk burnout (so most likely a silk/rayon satin)
Pattern: inspired by the tunic that's included in the Folkwear Monte Carlo dress pattern, but they didn't have the 3 yds I would have needed to pull that off, so I just made do with what they had.  Turned out MUCH simpler in the long run.
Year: 1920s
Notions: polyester (machine stitching to attach bias for neckline and prep hemline) and silk (for top stitching/finishing) threads.
How historically accurate is it? meh.  Close enough.
Hours to complete: About three.
First worn: see above
Total cost: Fabric was on sale, so about $12.

As you can see, the poncho is super thin.  It's not so much that I wanted something to keep me warm as I wanted something to kind of break up the top half of the Monte Carlo dress, which was fun, but not of a style that's very flattering for a pear-shaped human.  This way, you can still see the top of the dress, but hopefully won't focus on the boob-waist-hip ratios.  It also adds some flow to the top half to kind of balance out the movement and scope of the hemline of the dress.  The abstract garden design gives it just enough interest, without being too interesting.  And it's vague enough that the pattern on the back half being 'upside down' shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The construction was simple.  I just folded the yardage in half and cut a narrow oval for the neck, placing more of a dip in the front than that back.  The neckline was finished with a narrow strip of fabric cut from the ends.  Not a true bias, but the fabric was so light that it didn't really matter.  The front and back hemlines were cut in a shallow point and finished with a hand done rolled hem.  I left the selvedges along the side seams alone because I figured that there's nothing I could do to them that would look nicer or less obvious.  My only complaint is that the satiny bits of pattern tended to fray whenever they were manipulated, so a close inspection of the hemlines shows lots of tiny little threads sticking out.  Let it be a message to me to treat it VERY gently when it comes to washing.

I had kind of wanted to take pictures of the complete outfit, but I can't seem to figure out where the hell I put the dress.  Needless to say, organizing the costume storage is at the top of the list for projects to get started on this summer.

HSF 6: Fairytales - 18th century short cloak

For the Fairytales challenge, I decided to make myself a Little Red Riding Hood cloak.  I used the pattern diagrammed out in Costume Close Up, partnered with the instructions from The Hive Online's discussion on short cloaks and building on what I learned from the short cloak I made last fall for my mother-in-law to wear with her Acadian costume.

The wool is re-purposed from a plain hemmed shawl that I wore with my Melisandre costume.  It had been run through the abuse of a hot wash and high heat dryer cycle to get it a bit felled and a softer, more abused look.  The lining is silk twill and it and the silk ribbon for the ties and hem facing were dyed together.  (The ribbon went into the bath first, then the twill.  But at that point, I needed to add a touch more water to keep everything submerged, and thus the lighter tone of the hood lining.)

The entire thing is hand-sewn, with a silk ribbon used as a lightweight hem facing instead of leaving the edges raw.  I doubt it's terribly historically accurate to accentuate the ties with buttons, but I had the wolf head buttons on hand and couldn't resist.

The Challenge: #6 Fairytales

Fabric: wool outer and silk twill lining

Pattern: from Costume Close Up, with modifications from The Hive Online

Year: mid to late 18th century

Notions: silk ribbon, gold tone buttons and cotton thread

How historically accurate is it? Just about as accurate as I can get.

Hours to complete: Maybe 12, I didn't really keep track.

First worn: you're looking at it

Total cost: $18 for the wool, $1 worth of silk twill, $3 worth of ribbon and $3 for the buttons.  So $25 total.

Yeah, ignore the fact that I'm in my skivvies.
I was pulling double duty and photographing an upcoming project at the same time.

I just LOVE the way this falls over the shoulders.

Yay for an even hemline on the fist try

Close up of the back of the hood.  I'm still not sure I got the pleats arranged the way they were intended,
but this is what I could manage to make work.  The instructions were very insistent on there being a
correct way to do this, but not terribly clear on exactly what that way was.

Close up of the buttons and ties.

And the hem facing.  I pretty pleased with the color matching.  Even though they're not all the same intensity,
they are all the same shade and I think they go well together.

Now, to find myself a basket!