Frankenpatterning

or my usual way of getting a pattern that I want. This is the method that I usually use when trying to create something. I call it frankenpatterning, since it's more about selecting pieces of pattern that I like and then trying to combine them into a new one. It takes quite a lot of scrap fabric to work this way, but in time when I get more patterns that look the way I want I won't need to start from scratch every time.

The redingote for the revolutionary gown has been one of the main challenges from the start. I have never made something like it before. At first I had hoped to be able to use the waistcoat pattern for the redingote as well, and only lengthen it. Since I wasn't happy with the fit of the waistcoat, and especially that it wasn't full enough over the hips, I felt that I needed to start over. After having gone through Patterns of Fashion, Costume Close-up and quite a few blogs with recreated redingotes I figures that I had two choices to get the flare, either a lot of pleats or making a waistseam and attach a skirt portion to the bodice. I decided to try with the pleated version, since that's looks more military to me, but keeping the waistseam and skirt option available if I couldn't get the pleats to work.

My first step was to choose a back and front piece that I actually knew fit.

 The back piece is from the waistcoat, and it in turned started out as the lining back piece from RH822, it's been lengthened and adjusted. The front piece is my gaulle, that I knew fit well. From this it was ovbious that I first needed to lengthen the front.

Here I've put the gaulle bodice front on a piece of muslin. I made sure to trace the front seam and the side seam, and lengthen them. The front seam was also lengthened up towards the neck, since the redingote isn't going to have a deep neckline.

After this it was time to see how I was going to add enough fabric for pleating. I first looked at the shape of the coat in Costume Close-up and tried to add scraps of fabric until it had a similar shape. When I then pinned it to the dressform I wasn't totally happy about how they fell. I then took a look on the jackets on page 26-27 of Patterns of Fashion. especially jacket C. I much preferred those softer pleats, so I changed the shape of the added scraps to look like those pattern pieces. Just like that jacket I also added a gusset in a slit in the front, to make sure that I got enough flare. For the back piece I added triangular fabric to the side, but just a square piece to the center back, like in Costume Close-up.

Here is the finished muslin of the redingote. It's too short on one side, since I cut off a bit too much fabric when trying to decide on the length, but I'm going to work with the longer pattern pieces. It is a bit small, or rather the opening in the front is just like in the fashion plate, but I would not be able to close it, so I am going to make it a bit bigger there, simply by adding some more seam allowance.

Here are the finished pattern pieces, front (with a slit), gusset and back.