I made this jacket using what I’ve learned so far about historical patterns and techniques and I think I did a pretty good job of imitating my inspiration pic. I also know there’s a lot I don’t know, so I probably messed up in ways I’m not even aware of, and for that, I pray those who know better will forgive me.

My little guy, who is four, needed a warm jacket, 1860’s style, for the Victorian Strolls we’d be attending as a family in our area.

I started with a suit vest pattern I drafted for his older brother based on a suit vest we already had. The vest I made from that pattern, a size seven, served as a jumping off point for the jacket. I lowered the hem, curving the front edges of the jacket to match my inspiration photo. I made the armcyes smaller, and measured my little guys’ arm to see how long the sleeves needed to be.Remember this photo? These guys inspired the look I was aiming for when dressing the gentlemen in our family for the Victorian Strolls.

I rotated the shoulder seam to the back of the garment, which is where shoulder seams were back then. I forgot to do this for the lining, but did it for the outer layer by putting the front and back pattern pieces together at the shoulder and drawing a new shoulder seam that looked like the ones I saw on the historical patterns I’ve already made.

I freehand drafted a collar. I measured the length of the armcye with the shoulder seam sewn but the side seam open, and used that measurement to draft my sleeve, using my 1860’s Zouave Jacket sleeve pattern piece as a guide.

It is so satisfying when you use math in real life and it works. The jacket sleeve pattern piece gave me the shape of the sleeve where it attaches at the shoulder, and my math gave me the rest. From the top of the sleeve, I drew the rest of the pattern piece to create a roomy, straight sleeve with a generous hem that can be let down as my son grows. I adjusted the sleeve a little for a better fit as I went along.The cotton lining served as my muslin. When I had a good fit, I deconstructed it and used those pieces and the markups I’d made on the vest pattern as a guide to cut my fashion fabric, a beautiful Robert Kaufman flannel. Once it was sewn back together, I interfaced the front edges of the jacket lining, as well as the collar. I stay-stitched the collar of both layers to prevent stretching.

I pieced both layers of the jacket, then sewed them right sides together, leaving the neckline open. I attached the collar using the instructions from the Victorian shirt I made for the Chaplain, and finished it by stitching in the ditch from the outside of the coat. I only had to re-do one small section, and was able to machine-stitch the whole collar. I hand-sewed the sleeves to the lining.I had some problems machine-sewing my buttonholes. I am new to buttonholes, and my machine does not enjoy sewing buttonholes on flannel. I had to bind parts of three of my four buttonholes by hand after the machine did the buttonholes incompletely.  The fusible interfacing I used on around the edges and fray check on the buttonholes helped stabilize them in spite of the problems.

According to my inspiration photo, the buttons needed to be on the right side of the jacket, buttonholes on the left. But because of the way I drafted the collar, it only looked right if I put my buttons on the left, so that is what I did. If I did it again, I would draft the collar with smaller wings so that it wouldn’t matter which side I put the buttons on.I took a page from the Pragmatic Costumer, and covered pennies with fabric to make my buttons. I wrapped the fabric underneath the pennies into a little mushroom with sashiko thread, then sewed them to the jacket. I’m not sure if my button construction was good, historically speaking, but once buttoned they look great, and if I have an opportunity to make better buttons down the line, I have the fabric scraps to make it right.

Since I made the jacket, I discovered an easier, and nicer way of making fabric buttons. I still probably could have used pennies, but the construction of my buttons leaves something to be desired. I may go back and replace them at some point, but for now, the buttons are working fine.The end result of my effort is a jacket that looks surprisingly like the one in the photo. It felt like a culmination of all the sewing practice I’ve had in the past year. I am hacking and drafting my own patterns, which result in wearable garments that actually look good. It is a satisfying feeling.

So, hey. Taking photos of a four-year-old boy. You can either dress him up, or you can pose him in a place where there aren’t any anachronistic things – or people – but apparently, you can’t do both. So until he cooperates, photos in the basement where I cut off his legs so you can’t tell he’s wearing rollerblades… that is how we roll. Literally.