Mid-18th Century Frock Coat

Here's my first attempt at a mid-18th century frock coat. If you've read any of my other blog posts, you will know that I'm a fan of/glutton for speed sewing. This was probably one of my most insane endeavor to date. A start to finish (including making the buckram for the body pieces), unlined frock coat in 6 days. By then end of it, I was exhausted, but it turned out well enough and was functional.

All and all, I think that it turned out well enough. There is nothing fancy about this coat at all. It is part of my impression for the Artificer Tailor at Fort Frederick. This is a simple, unlined linen work coat that is perfect for summer wear. There are only 12 buttons (10 on the front, 2 on the side vents) and include 10 partially cut 2.5 inch buttonholes with 1 inch, cloth covered buttons.

The fabric is this really enticing color of brown that shifts between brown, green, and greyish tints depending on the lighting.

 I still need to make a few minor adjustments to it for it to be truly done. The skirts for the vents need to be tacked in place so that they don't flap about everywhere, and the interior seams need to be zig-zag stitched in place to prevent fraying. Other than those few minor details, I claim mission success.

A British Regimental Tailor

History is absurd and full of hilarious anecdotes if you just look close enough. Enter Samuel Lee, a name that I ran across researching tailors enlisted in the British army. He was a solider, master tailor, and first POW of the American Revolution. The story of Samuel Lee is an interesting one with an ending that makes you scratch your head and wonder "what were they thinking?"

Lee was a career soldier, born in London, who first came to the colonies with his unit the 18th Regiment of Foot (Royal Irish) in 1767. He was first stationed in Philadelphia until 1768, and then would spend the next five years at various positions in the American frontier. In 1773, he returned to Philadelphia. In addition to being a solider, Lee was also a tailor. By 1773, he was named master tailor of his regiment. A lot of what we know about artificer tailors in the British army comes from a court case that Lee gave witness for in 1774. 

A grenadier of the 18th of Foot is seen on the right from an 1851 paining by David Morier

In 1774, Lee gave testimony for the crown in a case against another tailor in the regiment John Green, who was on trial for false testament for saying that their Captain called the Chaplin a "buggerer." 

In the court proceedings, he is described as a solid, obedient soldier who was hard of hearing. The anecdotes of the other regimental tailors describes a scene of chaos and disobedience, often to the point that armed guards were placed on the tailors to ensure that they finished their work. The Captain describes the tailors as lazy and sloth to do their work. If you actually read the proceedings the tailors are not lazy at all, they're just working on private commissions instead of working on the regimental work that they're going to get paid for anyway. It's pretty funny to read, and I can imagine the spun up red faced officer in court describing the shop.

In 1774, Lee and his regiment were sent to Boston, and the grenadier company would be dispacted as part of the raid on the Concord powder magazine that would turn into the famous Battles of Lexingon and Concord. While in Concord, Lee was posted as a sentry while other soldiers searched for military caches in the area.

Maybe it's just me, but posting someone as a guard who has been described has hard of hearing in a court of law is probably not a good idea. Indeed it wasn't, as a minuteman by the name of Sylvanus Wood "snuck up" on Lee and relieved him of his weapon. He was then marched to Lexington as the first POW of the war.

By some accounts Lee was a deserter. Other hypothesis think that he was first wounded then captured. The Royal Irish actually listed him as dead in their after action reports. Lee would spend time as a POW until he was eventually released and set up a tailor shop in Concord. He would wed Mary Piper in 1776 in Concord, and remain there until his death in 1790 at the age of 45.  

Pattern Hack: Cut Off Those Seam Allowances

Two posts in one day. What am I thinking? Perhaps I'm not and that's why I'm taking the time to pontificate more than my usual amount. This pattern hack is simple, terrifying, but will make your clothing so much better. Cut the seam allowances off your pattern pieces. Just do it!

Modern patterns usually call for over large 5/8 inch seam allowances, which is way too big compared to the tiny seam allowances on original garments. Costume Up Close mentions that a study of seam allowances showed that most were somewhere between 1/8-3/8 inches depending on the garment. I split the difference and go with 1/4 inch. To achieve this, I trace the pattern piece, add the seam allowance, then cut.

If you are confident in your exactness of tracing, you could always trace each piece twice in opposite directions. The traced lines then become the stitching lines for the pattern pieces. Then all you have to do is guesstimate the seam allowance but cutting about 1/4 inch outside of the lines.

The other reason that I completely cut off the seam allowances is to accommodate making garments out of wool. Period wool garments typically have raw wool edges for the outside parts. Meaning, the broadcloth edge is not folded under like you would do with linen, cotton, or worsted. Why? It saves fabric and it shows off that your broadcloth is of a quality that it will not unravel. Trust me, nothing looks quite as sexy as a raw edged wool garment.

When using broadcloth with a raw edge, you have the added complexity of remembering which seams are part of the body and need a seam allowance, and which are the raw edges and do not. Trace twice, cut once.

Buttonholes and Distractions

 This is how I roll. Start one project, make decent headway, then get totally distracted and do something else. This is (somewhat) one of those cases. I've been working to make my green broadcloth frock coat more historically accurate, and I made pretty decent headway on it last week. Unfortunately the process involves almost completely remaking the coat.

So far I've torn the coat apart, cut off the edge seam allowances, re-attached the interfacing, and finished the button work. 1770's buttonholes are a thing of beauty if done correctly. They are thin and long--about 2.5 times the size of your button. This coat has 1.25 inch buttons, so these buttonholes are 3 1/8 inches of non functional beauty. Paired with the deaths head buttons, this coat is starting to look awesome.

I still have lots of work to do before it's done, but it's starting to look like a coat again. Naturally, though I took one step forward, so I need to take two steps back.

About a month ago, while portraying a refugee at Fort Frederick, friend of mine suggested that I contact the Fort to see if they would be interested in adding tailoring services to their collection of living historians. After a month of ironing out the details, I'm pleased to announce that I am officially the Artificer Tailor at Fort Frederick! Huzzah!

I will be at all the 18th century events for the remainder of the year, and will continue with new programs in 2019. I am very excited about this opportunity, and have all sorts of great plans and ideas that will be happening at the Fort.

First thing is first: I need an 1750s ensemble. All of my clothing is more appropriate for the 1770s. I could get away with 1760s with some of my waistcoats because extant garments did show a few examples of shortening panels in the 1760s, but I have nothing that is remotely 1750s. Looks like I'll be whipping something together in six days.

I would love to be able to make both a coat and waistcoat in six days, but it just isn't happening. Luckily for me, there are many mid-century images of working men wearing only a short coat with no waistcoat. Looks like I'm going for that. I am making a simple brown, unlined linen short coat similar to the one in this picture. Time for some speed sewing. What could go wrong?

Pattern Hacks: Do Your Research

Before you can even start, you should do your research. I don't mean month and months of it, but you should have a basic understanding of how the clothing is constructed. Here's a little secret, techniques varied from tailor to tailor in the 18th century so there are various correct ways to do something. Find what works for you. I am going to suggest three books. I have more in my library, but these are what I would call my must reads.

My Book Suggestions

For a breakdown on garments, I suggest reading Costume Up Close by Linda Baumgarten. The Forward section related to construction and stitching is probably the most useful three pages that you will run across. The analysis of the garments is exceptional from a deconstructionalist perspective. My only complaint is that the pictures are black and white, so not much detail can be gathered from the images.

For actual period instructions, check out the translated section on the tailor from the Diderot and d'Alembert Encyclopedie. This is a fantastic source for garment construction. The text not only instructs in clothing construction, but also the cutting and fitting portions of tailoring. The language is a bit confusing if you are unfamiliar with 18th century instructions and terms, but the the instructions are straight forward.

The final book that I suggest is the Workman's Guide to Tailoring Stiches. It's not the most user friendly book, but the stitch details and instructions are fantastic. I put this one last for a reason because you should read it last. After absorbing the information from the other books, this book shows you what stitches to use to put it all together.

My Museum Collection Suggestions

The second part of your research is looking at original garments. Several museums have massive collections of 18th century clothing, but only a few of them are looked at in fine enough detail as I would like. I want to see the inside, up-close-and-personal details on all of the clothes that online collections cannot provide for each item. The collection of Colonial Williamsburg and the Victoria and Albert Museum provides a good breakdown of materials used in each item, and they occasionally provide the detailed images that I desire for some of the items.

Other good sources are The Met, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Royal Ontario Museum, and of course check out Larsdatter.com and 18th Century Material Culture for a consolidated offering of original garments.

Pattern Hack Series: Introduction

Alright, so new (to this blog) idea. Let's hack some patterns to make the resulting garment more historically accurate. American Duchess does it all the time for ladies clothing, but I don't know of anyone doing it for men's clothing, so I will. I've lamented a few times with my wife that I wish there was a men's equivalent to The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking because men's attire is so much different in construction than ladies but equally as confusing if you don't have the experience. Ultimately, I'd love to write one. (Maybe if I write loud enough someone will offer me a book deal?)

So what the hell am I talking about? Pattern hacking? What is that?

There a few good patterns for creating 18th century clothing out there. You can typically tell the good ones because they cite the original garment that it is based from. The pattern pieces provide you with all the requisite pieces to reproduce a period garment. The problem is that the vast majority of instructions given for most patterns follow modern clothing construction and do not follow the 18th century process. The purpose of this series is to show you what I do to use those pattern pieces to make a more historically accurate 18th century garment and leave you looking Macaroni AF.

Coat Pocket Placement and Buttonholes

Pocket Placement

An unfortunately often overlooked detail in reproduction 18th century clothing is the placement of the pocket flaps, button hole and buttons. This detail, though small, can really make or break the look of an outfit. Most spectators would not know if your clothing was made out of inaccurate fabric, is cut incorrectly, or is of the wrong decade, but if your pocket is in a weird place they'll be able to tell that something is up.

Pocket and button placement is actually fairly simple. It should follow a straight line. If you draw a line from the bottom most button(hole) to the top of the side vent, the top of your pocket (or at least the top corners) should be right on that line. You can see that illustrated on the pattern to the right and again on the picture of the coat front that I'm redoing (pardon the terrible looking pocket flap; it's part of what I'm redoing). The same guidance is true for waistcoats. 

I have seen far too many frock coats and waistcoats that look absolutely wonky because the pockets are either way too high or way too low. It may be a small detail but spectators notice. It has nothing to do with knowledge of historic clothing. The logical symmetry just looks off and people take note.

Pattern Hack: A Note on Button Holes
I have a love/hate relationship with buttonholes. I love how a finished, properly placed buttonhole looks, but I hate sewing them.

In Art du Tailleur, M. de Garsault instructs that buttonholes be spaced about two inches apart on coats and waistcoats, which is a good general guidance. Most extant frock coats have 10 buttonholes, so you may find that spacing your buttonholes exactly two inches apart gives you with extra space between the top hole and the collar. I found that spacing the holes 2 1/8 inches a part gives me perfect spacing for 10 buttonholes. I came to that conclusion after plenty of experimenting, which can be seen by the various chalk marks on the coat front.

Drawing the button holes is fairly simple if you have a quilting ruler with a grid pattern on it. Once you have the first hole drawn, you simply draw the next one parallel to it 2 1/8 inches above it. Keeping them parallel causes the buttonholes to angle in relation to the curved lapel as you move further up the body. I find that most commercial patterns place the bottom button hole correctly, but they lose the proper spacing as you move up the torso so using this method creates a better looking coat front.

Another detail that is overlooked in reproduction patterns is the size of the buttonholes. They are too short. The pattern that I use calls for 3/4-1 inch buttons and then has lines for 2 inch-long buttonholes. In the 1770s, a fashionable gentleman's buttonholes would be about 2.5-times the size of the button. I am using 1 1/4 inch buttons on this coat, so the holes are 3 1/8 inches long. I'm gonna look Macaconi AF when this thing is done!

In a later post, I plan to cover my method for doing long work buttonholes, but I think that I'll leave it here for now.

Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy

Here's a fun one. An cookbook that is the 18th century equivalent of The Joy of Cooking. Enter Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. It's a good book and it is fairly easy to follow the recipes for the most part. Some recipes titles do not accurately describe what you are making, you will come across a few ingredients that you've never heard of here or there, and there will be some ingredients that no one makes any more, but this is otherwise a mostly straight forward and easy cook book for living historians and 21st century persons alike. Besides, where else are you going to find a recipe to roast a whole pig or cow's head?

The best part about this book is that it's in the public domain, so you can find a full copy of it on Archive.org here: TheArtOfCookery. I've personally made quite a few recipes from this book, including beef cooked in ale, the chicken marinade (a delicious 18th century fried chicken recipe), and many of the various rabbit recipes (yes, we eat a lot of rabbit, but that's another story for another day.) 

Check it out. If you'd rather spring for a print version, various people sell reprints for under $20 and I know of a few 18th century printers and binders who make fantastic reproductions.

So... Many... Buttons...

Sure, it would be a good idea to change out all the buttons on your frock coat to be deathshead button. How many buttons are on your frock coat? 28. How big are they? 1 1/4 inch. This was a bad idea, but at least they look good. 16 down, 12 to go.

Deathshead Button Tips

An unfortunately underrepresented detail in reproduced men's 18th century clothing is the deathshead button. If you were to take a census of the buttons on a group of living historians you would most likely find that metal buttons take the lion's share as they are prevalent on most mainstream clothing. Then you would find cloth covered, which is more accurate to the period. Deathshead buttons taking up the rear.

In reality, metal buttons were rare. A very quick look at period artwork and extant garments illustrates that cloth-covered and deathshead buttons were the most common. The reasoning is simple. Metal buttons were more expensive, and they weigh down the garment in an undesirable fashion causing waistcoats and coats to lose their desired form on the person. Metal buttons are more popular among reenactors because they require no time to manufacture, and they are easy to replace. Those who prefer to be more accurate choose cloth covered buttons because they are simpler to make than the deathshead alternative.

Deathshead buttons are awesome. There is no denying that. They are also a pain in the butt to make. Silk thread is slippery which does not mesh well with the process for making deathshead buttons which is to wrap a square around a circle. I avoided them for the greater part of a year because the thread constantly moved until I learned a trick that makes the buttons turn out great every time.

The process for making a button is simple in theory. Wrap three loops of thread around the mould to make an X. Then using the ends of the X as corners, wrap the thread to make a box. Secure the thread on the back and you're done. That works ok for linen thread, but when using silk, the X threads constantly slide so you lose your corners. Also, as you get closer to the center of the box those threads will move as well. Here are a few pointers that I use to make your buttons turn out great every time.

Tip 1 - Create a More Secure X

Instead of just wrapping the thread around the button mould to make and X, I thread the end of my silk through a needle then draw a length through the hold in the center of the mould. I then weave that side of the silk thread through the hole in the center of the mould to create the X. After I've created the X, I secure the crossover in the hole with a knot and cut of the excess leaving the spool side of the thread still attached. Weaving the thread through the hole makes a secure X that does not move no matter what. This is the most important tip and the key to making a good deathshead button. You will use a little more thread, but it's worth it.

Tip 2 - Use a Pin

The second most frustrating part of wrapping these buttons is that the thread does not stay in place as you get closer to the center. To prevent that from happening, stick a pin through the center so that the thread on the back of the button has an anchor point as you change from wrapping vertically to horizontally and vice versa. On buttons that have a diameter larger than 5/8 inches, you can do a few wraps without the pin, but with smaller buttons I would use the pin throughout.

These pictures show me making a 5/8 inch button using the a pin the entire time. The wraps turn out fairly uniform by themselves and can be adjusted slightly with a pin, toothpick, or other small item that you can use to push the threads into the desired place.

After finishing my wraps, I will loop the thread around the pin on the back of the button a few times to anchor everything in place. Then I cut the thread and use a needle to secure the back in place.

I have found that smaller buttons do not turn out looking as well as larger ones. My 1 1/4 inch buttons for my frock coat look exponentially better than these smaller buttons for my waistcoat.

Tip 3 - Get Some Pliers

Securing the button in place can be the hardest part if you don't have the right tools. If you made your button correctly the center is a tight mess of strong silk thread. Driving a needle directly through the center of that mess to secure the center in place is no picnic. Take my advice and forego strong manning it by using a thimble and a pair of pliers. Use the thimble to push the needle through the button until you can see the point on the other side, then use your pliers to pull it though. It will save you so much time, not to mention holes in your fingers.

Tip 4 - Buy Enough Thread

Deathshead buttons look awesome, but they use a lot of thread and are expensive. Button moulds are about $0.80 a piece and silk thread is about $6.50 per spool. In my experience, you can make three 1 1/4 inch buttons from one spool of thread, or eight to 10 5/8 inch buttons. An average frock coat has 28 buttons, so you're talking about nearly $90 to make your buttons. That may be expense, but it is totally worth it to be the most macaroni person out there.