Rockin’ the Rococo

The riding seems (to me anyway) to have been an equivalent to modern day “sportswear”, as in casual daywear.  In addition to being worn for actual riding, it was a woman’s “suit” that was popular for travelling in general and while out walking.

Women’s riding habits were styled after men’s fashionable dress of the time, were under the category of tailored garments, and thus predominantly made by male tailors.  However, my examination of artefacts has led me to believe that riding habits were indeed also made by female seamstresses.

The riding habit I am reproducing is one of these that I believe to have been made by a woman and is in the Museum of London’s collection.  I drafted a pattern directly from the garment (the jacket only, the petticoat is missing as per usual) while at the museum.  Due to availability and time constraints, I am using a different colour in different fabrics than the original.  The original artefact is made from a fawn coloured silk/wool blend that I *think* is camlet or callimanco, and it’s accented with yellow silk satin.  I am using a navy blue worsted wool, accented with matching navy silk pile velvet.

Day 1

I began today with a little pattern touch-up work.  Generally I try to have the patterns all ready to go before an actual sewing day, but occassionally it just doesn’t quite work out.  So today I needed to make some adjustments to the pattern that I’d forgotten to do earlier, just minor detail stuff.

My first proper task of the day was to start cutting – oh boy!  I cut the back pieces of the jacket, the bodice fronts, skirt fronts, and pocket flaps from the wool.  I then cut out the bodice lining pieces from linen.

I started sewing with the jacket centre back seam which was lapped and sewn with running/prick stitches.

Next I sewed the jacket front waist seams with quite small back stitches.

I then sewed the jacket side back and shoulders seams, all lapped and running/prick stitched.

Now that I had the basic body of the jacket together I turned to the lining and sewed the centre back and shoulder seams.  The centre back seam was sewn right sides together with small running stitches using linen thread.  The shoulder seams were lapped and slip stitched, also with linen thread.

Since I wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed after this and didn’t feel like putting thought into it anymore that day I decided to sew up the pocket flaps, which are self-lined.  I sewed each piece right sides together with small running stitches, then managed to turn one of them and top-stitch close to the edges.

Day 2

I started today by trying on the jacket as it was so far.  Uh…..oops…..the bodice doesn’t fit across the front.  Bugger.

So, back to the drafting table for me.  Either I still need quite a lot of practice at drafting from artifact garments, or this person had basically no bust whatsoever.  I think I’m going to go somewhere in the middle and say it’s a little of column A and a little of cloumn B – to be kinder to the both of us.

I altered and re-cut the wool.  Of course this means I also have to re-cut the linen lining and the linen canvas interfacing pieces.  What fun.  I’m sure that if I had been a real seamstress of the 18th century and made this mistake I would have been seriously……..reprimanded.  Hmm.

Today, therefore, also involved significant re-sewing.  I re-did the side and shoulder seams of the jacket.  Then re-sewed the jacket front bodice and skirt pieces together  all with the same seaming techniques as I did in the first place.  Yes, I re-did all that backstitch at the front waist seams.  At least it was good backstitch practice and I’m starting to get my stitches quite small.

Now, I had re-drafted the bodice fronts to be quite generous – just in case.  Thus, my next task was to drape thejacket body and trim the jacket bodice front edges.  I then drew in the darts on the bodice centre fronts and sewed them up with backstitch (more practice, whee!!)

Finally for the day, I un-picked the shoulder seams of the linen bodice lining in preparation for fixing that up.

Day 3

I started today by recutting the bodice front linings, sewing the bodice lining darts to match the ones in the jacket fabric, but using small running stitches instead of backstitch.  I then re-sewed the lining shoulder seams the same way as I had done the first time; and I re-cut the front edge linen canvas interfacing pieces.

Because I guess I just could not get on the ball, there was more drafting today: the sleeves; and cut them out.

Then, surprise surprise, I sewed them up.  They were sewn with lapped seams and running/prick stitches (have I mentioned before that I love this seaming technique?  It’s so quick and easy – as far as hand sewing goes – and really quite strong!  Must have been a very clever person who thought this up).

Then, for something completely different (and because I didn’t feel up to setting in the sleeves today) I turned and top-stitched the other pocket flap, so now they’re both done.

Next (to continue avoiding sleeve-setting-in) I cut out the pieces for the matching petticoat and started sewing up the side seams with smallish running stitches.  Since woollen cloth could come in much wider dimensions than other cloths at the time I am not going to add false fabric joining seams into the skirts.  As far as I understand it was possible to get worsteds in widths of around 60″, or even more.

Day 4

I began today by finishing up the petticoat side seams, leaving openings for the pocket slits.  However, as luck would have it I just finished pressing the seams open when I discovered that I had sewn them wrong ways round.  Or at least one was wrong, I’d sewn the top of one piece to the bottom of the other.  Perfect.  More re-doing.  I would so have lost my job over this riding habit.  I had no choice but to take out the seams and re-do them.

However, although I ripped out the seams, I did not re-do them right away, I couldn’t bring myself to.  Instead I went ahead and set a sleeve into the jacket.  These are a bit tricky to do because they require making the fabric behave elseways than it wants to.  The sleeves are sewn into the jacket by lapping the armhole seam allowance of the jacket body over the armhole seam allowance of the sleeve and sewing together with running/prick stitches.  And the jacket armhole did not like being turned under, particularly at the underarm portion.  There were a lot of pins involved, and thus a lot of prickings of my poor fingers.  This is why it states at the start of the paragraph that I set “a” sleeve in.  I (and my fingers) need a break before doing the other.

So, I basted the interfacings to the bodice front edges, also due to prickings of fingers and hands while working.

Surprisingly, I was ready to do the other sleeve after only that short reprieve.

So this is what it looks like so far:

 

On a real person this does close shut all the way, it’s just that Judy’s bust is not very squishy even with stays.

And that’s some pretty great carpet I’ve got in my apt, eh?  You should see the laminate in the kitchen!

Once the sleeves were in it was more drafting: the false waistcoat front.

I then cut and fabric-pieced the lining pieces for the false waistcoat sewing with small running stitches.  I could have cut whole pieces, but thought I would take part in the 18th century practice of fabric conservation!

Next I cut the false waistcoat from the co-ordinating velvet, and then the linen sleeve linings.

This is to try and give you some idea of the velvet’s texture.  It is really pretty luscious, but difficult to photograph.  I knew I wanted to use this for the false waistcoat even before I decided on the wool because I think it’s pretty close to one of the types of velvet available at that time.  It’s also VERY narrow – like 18-20″ in width, has a silk pile and tightly woven but thin cotton backing – this makes me think that the velvet itself may be pretty old itself, at least from a time before current fabric/fibre choices.