Need to get the ball rolling...faster...

Hey all...

So the project I've been mainly working on these past couple of weeks have been Fredrik's breeches. Which, have been an experience, mostly due to the fact that I literally don't have any idea what I am doing, and only have a few pictures to base my work off of...and some of the pictures are totally useless for helping me when it comes to that (blurry...damnit). However, thanks to Mark and Neal, I was given a nice pattern, that is fairly easy to construct. I'm still curious about a couple of things, but hopefully I'll be able to figure it out.

What I have completed so far has been sewing the seams together (basically making the actual pant), and prepping the waistbands (sans holes or buttons of anysorts) and working on the front flap with the interior flaps. Here's what I did:

Construction

  Well the first challenge I had was actually 'How the hell do I put these pieces together?!!' I had a vague idea of what should be going on, but I wasn't confident. In an act of desperation and solidtude I decided to pin the pieces together some of the way...or...I guess I should say the most obvious way (the legs) and figured out the rest on my body. I discovered a few things during this process:

• Pins hurt (but I already knew this from my Colonial Williamsburg intern days and I sat on my pin cushion..funny story..invovling me putting my pin pillow in my pocket and proceeding to sit on my pocket (ie pinpillow) then having to physically remove the pinpillow from my um...bum...and having my boss clean the wound and write up an accident report. So, somewhere deep in the files of Colonial Williamsburg there is an accident report about a young intern that sat on a pinpillow.)
  
• These breeches were way cute and very fitted (luckily their knit so they move nicely)
• My bum fills out the breeches quite nicely (compared to Fredrik's little bum)
• I shall wear these as fashion pants after Fredrik finishes with them. :D (Muah ha ha ha ha ha)

This plan worked brilliantly and all of the sudden lightening struck and I figured out what it was I needed to be doing. After this point I pinned everything together the way they were supposed to be and went to sewing. I didn't have strong brown thread so I used my black linen thread for the seams. This worked amazingly well (Fredrik did an obnoxious 'strength' test against his 'super strong poly' thread and my black linen thread. Linen thread won.) You don't see the black either because I was only using the seams anyways. I have a lot of faith in the strength of the breeches now too. They were incredibly easy to sew as well, much more pleasant than the waistcoat. They went together extremely quickly, and when Fredrik came home that night we did a test run with all of his (unfinished) garments, and I took note of things that needed fixing..like his shirt...but that's a different story...

 

As you can see, he needs a waistband on the breeches..and legs that are lightyears better than mine. *sigh*

So that's where I was for a while. Sunday and yesterday I spent time sewing the waistbands together and creating and working the fall front flaps and the interior flaps. Everything went together very quickly and the flap looks alright. I'm dissatisfied with the appreance of the points that reinforce the cut made to create the flap, but I kind of knew going into this that those would not turn out as beautiful as I would wish. I don't have pictures of those just yet, but I will hopefully be doing a fitting with Fredrik tonight, and I will post pictures promptly after that.

*My question for you all in costume blogsphere, how should I finish the edges at the knees? We are not doing buckles, but ribbon (which can be see in 1790s and early 1800 breeches) I cannot tell from the images if they had the ribbon wrapping all the way around the knee or if it was just attached and tied. Has anyone any idea on how to do this? When I was in Göteborg this weekend, I saw an 1800 print in an antique shop that seem to depict the breeches with the ribbon all the way around, but I'm not confident. Any feedback would be much appreciated!