Better fit for my 17th century jacket

 When I wore this jacket for the 17th century event last year I had not had time to finish it properly. Also since making it I have changed how I want to wear it. I thought of it more as a jacket to wear over other clothes, as a last warm layer, and I made it quite loose to fit over a my long sleeved green wool gown. Now I see this more as a jacket to wear on its own, and with that I want to make it more fittet.

The most blatant problem though was my mistake with the sleeves, cutting out two of the same side and then having to recut one of them, so it was clearly shorter than the other one.

So the first thing that I had to do was make them equal. So I simply cut off the longer sleeve. Then both of the sleeves were too short, so I had to add some cuffs.

I tested a cuff shape with scrap fabric first until I was happy with the shape. Cut out four pieces and sewed them together before adding them to the end of the sleeve. The sleeve is a bit larger than fashionable at the time, so the cuffs are also a bit on the larger side, but I did not feel like taking them, rather keeping the loose fit.

The next step was to take in the front, quite a lot, to get a better fit. Thankfully all the hooks and eyes were sewn to a separate piece of fabric that I had attached to the main fabric like a facing and then added the lining over. 

So I opened up that seam took out the strips with the hooks and eyes and then I could take in the front seam, by simply trying it on. I can't get a perfect fit in this way, not like when you take in both the front and side seams, or even better make a better fitting bodice from the start, but I could at least make it less loose in the front.

The final alteration was to add shoulder wings. This is a very typical feature for clothes in the late 16th and early 17th century, so adding them permanently would place this jacket firmly in this time period, but I made them detachable so I can take them off, and that will make the jacket more of a generic style that works for a longer time period.

The size of the shoulder wing was tried with a scrap piece first.

I cut them out in two layers and sewed them together. The rounded edge is then sewn to the the shoulder seam, but with quite large stitches so that they will be easy to take off I want to. In hindsight I should probably have made the wings a little larger, they are on the small side, but this was really the last scrap of fabric that I had. Here are photos of the new fit of the jacket.