Wedding Kit!

I'm so very pleased to be able to show this off!  Two of my very good friends got married at the weekend and I was asked to make the grooms frock coat.

I've been working on this for a while.  Overall it was a lovely project and I really enjoyed making it, but it came with a few issues along the way.

First up was ordering the pattern.  We decided on an 1830s frock coat pattern, but I couldn't find an English supplier.  So I ordered it from America.  The company weren't very helpful and they forgot to post my order so instead of having the pattern when I needed it I actually ended up with it mid March.

Then I struggled with the pattern on the mock up as several of the lines were missing and the pieces just didn't fit together so I ended up redrafting the skirt and more or less ignoring the pattern directions as they made little to no sense.

 

This is the mock up.  The first attempt was marginally too small, so I sized up and then it was too big!  Eventually I got it fitted properly and we looked at fabrics for the real thing.

The inspiration is Tristan's coat from Star Dust so we looked at linens.  I did find some lovely ones in Bath but eventually we settled on a lovely Irish linen from my favourite online retailer Herts Specialist Fabrics.  We also got the lining from there, choosing a cream silk.

Several fittings later and it was going well! 

The coat has no interfacing and is mostly shaped by pleats and lots of steaming when it's pressed!  It's a very light and floaty garment.  The buttons are wood and front ones button, but the collar ones are just stitched on top.

Lastly,  here are a few pics of the coat in action!

On Thursday I'll show off a few of the other things I made for the wedding!