What happens, when you leave your unfinished item for half a year?
It was totally my fault. Or it was the fault of the loss of sewing mojo, I dealt at the first half of last year. I was trying to push myself through a wall, and all the while I needed a coat/jacket for one of my (very) late Victorian/early Edwardian outfit, the one with the dark red skirt and waistcoat, however, I did not want to ruin the wool I had for this. So I dug out a piece of blue wool (one that some moth already gotten to) and decided to make a trial piece a kind of "useable mock-up"). As usual, my mind run with the idea, and in no time there was a full fledged whole outfit plan, complete with a skirt and a new waistcoat (ezekről majd a legközelebbi varrós bejegyzésben), thinking that a late Victorian walking skirt is easy enough to push me through the block. I did the skirt, up until it needed a hemline, and went on working in the coat.
I decided to use the Reconstructing History pattern (because it seemed simpler than the Black Snail one I also had). Yes, I know RH patterns have a really bad reputation, but as I already said when I made their split skirt, that these clothes reequire fittings anyhow, and I only use the patterns as a starting point, all the while I feel confident enough dressmaker, that I rarely read the instructions at all, so it does not scare me if they are not top notch.
I made a mock up from an old piece of fabric, I cut out the wool (carefully avoiding the moth-bitten part), started sewing, made to the point when it only needed the sleeves. And then I lost my momentum. Like TOTALLY. It was worst lull, than the one I started with earlier in the year. Like a total block. I had that skirt with a bit of hem done the needle hanging on the tread on it, and the rest left hanging and there was the jacket without sleeves hanging on the door of my sewing room (where my WIPs live). For months. Every time I looked it I felt ashamed, why can't I just finish these? Really no answer.
Then the 18th century clothes and underthingies kind of dragged me out of the whole, and we had an event planned for the beginning of October... Outdoors, it was a city walk we did. In October the weather is definetly not warm enough to be outside in a waistcoat only (besides, that is almost like going out naked in period manners), so it was high time for me to finish the coat.
Right, but I lost more than 15 kilos in the meanwhile, and the coat.... khmmm, did not fit me well. I've tried/did what I could by taking in at the sides, putting the buttonholes even further from the front edge, but I was not up to completely take the thing apart (which would have meant not only taking out the completed lining and skirt/peplum part, but also taking out the collar and the front line). You can't say, I am not brave, when it comes to sewing, send me a coat to embroider its hem, or make handmade lace for its cuff, I'll do it, but taking something apart that is already sewn and finished...something that was planned to be a useable mock-up to beginn with- Nope. Thinking that it is an outerwear anyway, more like a coat than a jacket, I said the hell with it, I finished the sleeves, and put it up as a finished item.
Putting in the sleeves were no small feet either, because 1) the original sleeves in the pattern were way to long, and even though I took some of it's width out, 2) still way to wide... You have read above, I was way over this thing, so I just made a fold and stuck some decorative buttons on it.
It does have a good enough silhuette from afar, but if you look closely, it is way to big at the back and at the breast. I am not sure what will I do with it, for now it is in my historical wardrobe, and I used it again, since (in an advent event).
Most probably, now that I know and practiced making it, I will make this coat again, fitting it to my current body and fixing the sleeves, but until then...
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