Tag: 18th century

Pirate Shirt

Simplicity 4923

Today, rather than sewing something I actually need, like a dress for work or a winter coat, I decided to make a pirate shirt. As you do. (If you’re me.)

The pattern is Simplicity 4923, view C. I made a size Medium.
The fabric is just a plain black polycotton, and the cuffs are trimmed with flat broderie anglais lace – all from my stash. The collar size and length are just right, but the sleeves are absolutely ridiculous – even by 18th century standards. I could easily shorten them by four or five inches and they’d still be enormous!

Next time I think I’d like to make one in a nice soft white linen. I’ve found the perfect linen buttons too – just like the ones on the smocks at MERL. In fact, I might employ a technique I saw on a number of the MERL smocks, and make some horizontal tucks in the sleeves to shorten them.

I also want to have a look at The Cut of Men’s Clothes by Norah Waugh, and see what I want to do about the front fastening. I don’t really want to add eyelets and ribbon, so I might go for thread loops and little buttons. I should have done that on the sleeves, but for the sake of convenience (and maybe a touch of laziness) I went for snap fasteners instead.

There’s another goth night in a couple of weeks, so I plan to wear this with Paul’s old leather trousers. If I have time, I might make a waistcoat to go over the top. I’ve still got a piece of black and silver brocade that should be just about big enough.

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Last night I watched Brotherhood of the Wolf, and now I find myself wishing that I had a masquerade to go to, so that I had an excuse to make a couple of really exciting 18th century costumes.

Simplicity 3637 would be an ideal starting point – although it might be rather an expensive one. The dress takes almost nineteen metres of fabric! In a pretty brocade or embroidered silk… actually, I don’t even want to work out how much that would cost.

And then of course there’s Simplicity 3635, to go underneath. Ten metres of steel boning for the panniers… and twenty-eight metres for the stays! Wow.

I don’t know though, whether I’d want to wear such an enormous dress, or whether I’d choose to go for a fancy gentleman’s coat instead.

Simplicity 4923 looks rather drab in these pictures because it’s intended as a pirate costume, but again in an embroidered silk it could look absolutely stunning.

I think I’d probably make the shirt, trousers and waistcoat from the men’s pattern, but use Simplicity 3677 for the coat.

I’ve made both the men’s and the women’s versions of the coat before, and the women’s version has a princess seam at the front which makes for a better fit.

Obviously none of these patterns are terribly accurate, historically speaking, but for a masquerade or a costume party, they’d be an excellent starting point.

Then I’d just need to find somebody who was willing to go with me, of course. Paul really doesn’t do dressing up.