Pierrot jacket start

This week I've packed away my 18th century stuff on the attic. Autumn is Star Wars costume season for me. Still I am a member of the Historical Sew Monthly, and I really want to finish all the challenges this year. The September challenge is "brown", now it's not really a favorite colour of mine, but two years ago I picked up a quilting cotton with a nice 18th century pattern on it, and it's brown wth pink roses. It was quite expensive so I didn't buy more than 2 m (I think), but since then I've always tought it would be wonderful to turn it into a pierrot jacket.

The pierrot jacket was common during the 1780's, exactly where I try to focus my 18th century wardrobe. It's a short jacket with a peplum in the back, but there are some without peplums as well.

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/80591

The hard thing was to decide what kind of peplum I wanted in the back, and that I would be able to pull off. There are som pierrots where the peplum is cut in one with the bodice.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8666432@N04/551034851

and there are some where there is a visible waist seam and the peplum is pleated into that.

http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?objnr=109812

When I asked around for advice I got the tip from Åsa to make a compromise, and have the back piece go into the pepluem, but attach the rest of it at the side seam. She has done that in her 18th century caraco. Later Johanna also showed me her jacket constructed in the same way. 

So with that done I got my basice bodice pattern that I made in June and cut out a muslin. I was happy with the back piece, then it was time to cut out the rest of the peplum. On this it was mostly a case of guess work, looking at the kind pattern pieces that Åsa had, and what they look like in Patterns of Fashion, but basically just cutting an elongated piece of fabric and pleating it in different ways until I was happy. I cut the length and shape of the side of the peplum when I was happy with the pleats.

Ignore the bad fit of the muslin. There is no chance that I can get my stays onto my dress form, so it's quite useless for 18th century fitting, but it's still good when I want to attach skirts and the like.