A 16th century man's jacket

 I must say that I feel like this year I don't really stick to any plans when it comes to costuming, but I rather jump straight into projects. Over Easter me and David visited his parents and his mother gifted me some beautiful fabrics, including a wonderful camel-colored wool in a coat weight. I really felt like it wanted to be made into something historical, but I already have my mustard coloured kirtle in a similar colour. Since the fabric was from David's mother I then felt it was appropriate to make something for him, and since we had a guild feast coming up on Saturday I decided that I would make a jacket for him in four days. 

There was no time to really make a pattern for it, but I looked around and got really inspired by the early Tudor clothes of the Tudor tailor. From that I could see that it looked like they use a construction of two backpieces, two front pieces, a separate skirt and puffy sleeves. I took the same pattern as when I did his faux medieval jacket in the winter, but then I fitted the back a lot tighter and I raised the neck. I cut that pattern off at the waist and added a boxpleated skirt, made from two lengths of fabric. Looking at the patterns in "Drei Schnittbücher" it seems as if circle cut skirts were mostly used, but the box pleated skirt gives the same look, and it is also a lot easier to adjust and hem it. The sleeve pattern is my standard S-sleeve pattern, which I must start to remember is too tight at the cuffs for him. It is wide enough to give him a bit of puff, but it's not a big puff sleeve.

The bodice of the jacket is lined with linen, but not the sleeves or the skirt. Since this was a bit of a rush job I haven't hemmed the skirt or the sleeves yet, after all the wool doesn't unravel.

I didn't really know how to close the jacket. Looking at recreations and period sources I couldn't really see any visible fastenings. I tried first with some hook and eye, but since it's too big in the front there wasn't enough tension on them and they unfastened. So in the end I did a really quick fix in that I sewed on some tape that can be tied together. I might switch this for cloth buttons later, but it works for now.

With this jacket I feel as if he has a good start on an early 16th century outfit. At the guild I also picked up some wool that we had done a group order for and that should be enough to make him a pair of trousers/hose and a hat that actually fits him as well.

My Amalia Star Wars jacket

 My big plan for Star Wars Celebration 2022 was to make an 18th century ensemble out of a Knitorious Toile fabric. When I realized that I wouldn't be able to go to SWC I decided to make this outfit for my 40th birthday party instead. After some stress so I didn't have time to finish anything but the jacket at least it was done. I then went to the party, had a great time, and realized afterwards that I didn't have a single photo of me from the evening.

So here is the jacket instead on my dressform, which is totally the wrong shape to fill out an 18th century garment.

I used the Amalia jacket from Scroop patterns, but I didn't follow the instructions exactly. The instructions are for a very historically accurate, and I opted to use the sewing machine as much as possible. I also skipped the lining for the sleeves, I am not going to wear this jacket so much that I need to strengthen the sleeves, instead going for something with less layer to keep it cooler in the summer or at crowded conventions.

As usual Scroop Patterns have a lot of instructions on how to get a perfect fit. I found it hard to follow them all though, since they very much depend on draping the garment on your body. I can't drape on myself and my dressform is nowhere near my measurements when wearing stays. There were some fit issues due to that, and not because of the pattern.

One part where fitting on your body was necessary was the sleeves though. I have huge upper arms, and still the sleeves as made up straight from the pattern gave me a big puff sleeve.  I followed the instructions and smoothec and repinned the fabric over and over again though. In the end this is how much fabric I had to remove when the sleeve was attached to the bodice.

I could probably have removed even more, but I was in a hurry to finish it. Still it was great to follow the instructions, even if it felt wrong to remove so much fabric, and the upper arm still didn't get too small for me.