Friday, January 22, 2016

And Now, The Breeches

I still have to put buttons and edging on my new coat, but until I find the buttons I want, I'm moving on to the breeches. As I have mentioned earlier, I'm going with a much simpler Butterick pattern rather than a time-consuming period-correct one. This is because the coat and the complimenting weskit will likely cover up much of the breeches in the places where you would notice the period-correct parts. You won't be able to tell if they're fall-front or fly-front.


This pattern comes as part of a Colonial coat, shirt, tricorn and breeches packet, so I have more patterns than I need. As expected, what I need is not on one piece of tissue paper.


I have plenty of leftover material from the coat for the breeches. Helping matters: several large pieces I have left over are nearly a perfect fit for some of the breeches parts, meaning I have less cutting to do. In all, I have four large pieces and three small ones.


After sewing for part of the afternoon and evening and stewing over whether it's prudent to make some modifications, I arrive at my result.


You will notice the bottoms that wrap around my calves are not as narrow as they probably should be. The plan is to make a slit up the sides so I can take them in with button snaps on the outer seams.


I soon find that solution is not going to take them in enough, so I will have to dart them on the inner leg seams. I intentionally made the legs wider to accommodate my big thighs. I didn't want to use elastic as the pattern directs. I was able to make the waistband just large enough to slip over my fattening tummy without the need to take anything in or leave anything out. A few buttons will complete the look.


Another necessary task: using Fray-Check on the inside seams which are unraveling like a bad mummy. I coated as many edges as I could as neatly as I could, but I still got a few spots in places I didn't need. Fortunately, it's not very noticeable given the pattern.

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