Most of my historical clothing tends to be more high fashion fancy looks, mostly beacause I do costuming not really historical renacting. Or atleast I haven’t done any renacting but who knows what the future will bring… but I have no current plans on doing it. The thing that really got me originally hooked on 18th centure though is how wearable the clothes are even in modern life, were as my teenage fantasy of a gothic bustle gown is’t very practical. So I have wanted for sometime to do a easy to wear more lower class outfit, something that could transition into my everyday closet aswell. I started this project during the christmas holidays as a quick sew but then the fit was off and other projects that were on a deadline pushed this one to the side. Then corona came along and all of a sudden there were no deadlines, so great time to finish this project!
The jacket is is wool lined in blue linen and the petticoat a wool twill that I didn’t quite have enough of so the back is pieced at the top with the linen I used for the jacket lining. It actually adds a nice bit of fullness and along with my natural lower body shape gives me a great siluette without any padding.
The front of the petticoat is pleated regularly and on both pieces the linen waist tapes are sewn to the underside of the petticoat. The side seams being selvage edges are just running backstitched together untill the pocket slits.
For the jacket I thought I’d take the easy lazy route and used the jp ryan jackets pattern instead of drafting my own. I made the 1760s version as I liked the legth and the stomacker but omitted the cuffs to make it work better with the slimmer sleeve fashions of the 70s.
Well it turned out once again to actually not be any quicker as the pattern is made for machine sewing and has built in seam allowance that is just way too wide when you hand sew with the english stitch. If you aren’t familiar with this stitch I highly recommend it for any seams were there is a lining and fashion fabric as it seams and finishes the edges on of all layers in one go. Since I was being lazy I didn’t bother with a mock up, I mean it was a stomacer in the front, it’s easy to adjust, what could go wrong!? Well turns out that the one thing since I already had cut the straps separate to avoid fit issues the only thing that could really go badly wrong was the back fit and waist. They both did go wrong. So after ripping my seams at the correct places, cutting it down and resewing it finally was done!
I did two photoshoots with this outfit, one Outlander inspired as the jacket wool reminds me of Claire’s style and the books really inspired me to actually make an 18th century outfit in the first place. In the other pictures I tried for an authentic look but I’ll leave it to you to judge how well I succeeded in that. The apron was a true seed sewing project done in an hour and a half just before the photoshoot and is made out of the same linen as the lining and the top bit of the petticoat. In both pictures I’m wearing my 1770’s to 80’s stays, shift, stockings, garters and one underpetticoat underneath the outfit, no extra padding, though in the outlander ones I’m wering my thicker flannel under petti as it was near freezing that day and in the more authentic ones a thinner though still rather hefty linen one as it was a wamer spring day.
p.s. if you spot the shoes in either pictures ignore them, I was planning on ordering a more practical everyday pair of 18th century shoes this spring before this happened as my only pair are white but now it’ll have to wait for things to get back to normal.
Here are the middling sort or what we would call today middle class pictures:
And now for the outlander styled ones!
The shawl is knitted with indigo dyed merino wool and natural white alpaca. The mitts are knitted out of Icelandic lopi wool.
That’s it for now folks! Till next time
xxx
Sew through time 