| I was going to use the pattern that most people consider canon, the Simplicity Civil War uniform which is discontinued, but I have a copy of it. But the Imperial Officers Corps pointed out a great pattern that I hadn’t seen for a ladies jacket – McCall’s 4596 – which has a very nice cut, very similar seaming, and princess seams on the back for those of us with curves.
I’ve also used Kathy V’s walk through as well as one from my Garrison’s Quartermaster, Cricket to assist with the creation of this outfit. The fabric I picked up is a cotton blend (may be a cotton/poly blend, I wish I remembered) with a nice weave that should be suitable for the uniform. It’s a nice rich black, even though the picture makes it seem a little bit grey. |
Pattern
As noted above, I’m using McCall’s 4596, version C. I can already tell a few things:
-I’m going to need to change some of the seams (back, neck, front)
-It’s way too long
-The collar needs to be higher, and not split
Other than that, it’s good. 
At least I think it will be, but that’ll be for the mock up to decide!
MockupI create mock ups of all costumes I do in muslin prior to cutting on the actual fabric. The stuff I usually get is far too expensive to make mistakes with, and while this fabric wasn’t SO much, I still want to get it right before I cut into the real fabric! The plan is to do the initial mock up with the pattern nearly as designed, and then redraw seams and make any modifications needed, create a second mock up, and that will be the end pattern. The only initial pattern pieces I made mods to were the back and the front – the collar hem didn’t come close enough to the neck, so I made that change right away. In doing the mock up, I made some decisions: -How long the skirt would be The last point will also assist with the structure of the jacket. |
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Mock up #1 – The fun begins!I’m not usually filled with hubris when I begin projects. And while I’ve been sewing since I was 12, that doesn’t mean I’m not still stricken with dread that my end result will come out looking like utter and complete crap, despite my best intentions. My first mock up did nothing to assist with my feelings of poor sewing self esteem -Pinned out the arm dart that the pattern called for. I just didn’t like it. I totally ignored the lining for now – I’ll have to figure out that from the recut pieces anyways, so it’s pretty useless to do anything more than remember you have to do it at this point. I wear my smaller scissors and a mini sharpie around my neck when I sew, and this made for quick mark ups for the mock up. Soon I was cutting my hard sewed together work into new pieces, ready for Mock up #2. I used Cricket’s method of widening the skirt which I loved and hadn’t thought of before (cut up the seam lines and flair the pattern piece on the new one) to make the skirt have more fullness. |
It actually came out just fine in theory. I did a few other things:Mock up #2 – Hrm. Is it supposed to look like that?
Here’s where my lackadaisical attitude hurts me with cutting. I totally missed the first time through that the skirt part had a separate panel to match the separate front panel, so I had to do the skirt three times to get that right. It’s better to have too much skirt and pin it back than not enough. Also, I realized once I got it on that NONE of the seam lines, not just the front one were right.
After working on it for far too long in one day I started to get sewing lazy eye – when you look at something and say, “That’s good enough, isn’t it?” I knew at that time it was past time to walk away. I’ll stare it down again and see if it really meets the standard, or if it needs another mock up.
When I picked it back up, I realized that it really was actually in pretty good shape. The only thing that needed help really was the skirt – it just wasn’t correct in therms of seaming and the like. I did a third pattern piece just for the skirt and attached it to the mock up, and liked what I saw. With that in mind, it was on to cutting pieces!
Fabric cuttingSo here is when I need to decide how I’m going to line this coat. I could just do a piece for piece lining of the inside with pretty seams, or I could actually line it like a tailored coat. I am going to try the latter, which means that I won’t be using the pattern pieces in the same way that I cut from the main fabric on the lining. I’ll get into that in a bit. I’m cutting all of the outside pieces (obviously) in the main fabric, and additionally the front flap and front skirt piece will also be double sided rather than lined. I’m doing it this way because when you open that flap I still want it to look neat, but I don’t want it lined. I’ve also put interfacing in the top of the back piece, the front flap, and the front sides to give the coat a more tailored, crisp look. At least I hope that’s how it’ll look! |
Jacket Assembly
I started by ironing all of the pieces to make sure they looked crisp, and then ironed in the interfacing and assembling the collar, the sleeves and the back. These pieces are straightforward to assemble and don’t require really figuring out how I’m going to put them together in the right order.
Just a quick word about snaps – I’m not even going to tell you how I did them (I might if they work). I think that it depends which snaps you’re using, and how you’re going to attach them. Personally, this is my least favorite part of this so far. Just make sure you determine how this is going to occur and think it all the way to completion before you put pliers to fabric. Also, I hate the dritz ‘jumbo’ snaps – be careful of the difference between those and ‘heavy’, even if the size #’s are the same.
| I hemmed the jacket front piece together from the collar all the way around to the bottom edge. I left the right edge, right top shoulder, and bottom edge to be attached to the top, sides and skirt of the jacket.
I had to rip the hem out of the right side of the jacket twice due to not lining up all four pieces of fabric correctly and having exposed seams. I’ve got one more modification to do on it (I missed the very edge of the pocket in the seam, so I may have to rip it all out a third time), so again just be careful here else you’ll end up doing a lot of rework that you didn’t want to do. The interfacing also makes it a little more unwieldy to work with. Setting the sleeves was interesting due to the way the sleeve sits, so make sure you take your time with that. Also, the way I chose to do the front of the jacket made attaching the collar QUITE interesting, so again make sure you think about how this is all going to go together before you start to sew. I did the skirt as one long piece, with one side hem that being at the front of the jacket. I wanted to make sure it was long enough to wrap, and I didn’t want to remove any options of that by hemming both sides. I’m going to go back and hem all that after it’s attached to the jacket. The final (with basting stitching not final) came out pretty well I think. A few days later and I’ve got a zipper (not invisible as I couldn’t find/don’t think they make invisible separating zippers, and have darted the front flap. Looks spiffy if I do say so. Marked the place where the mirrored snap will be placed, and added those. After that was complete only then did I dare hem the sleeves and skirt. The jacket is done, for all intents and purposes. I still have to finish adding the lining (which is nearly complete), but I’m going to call it done. |
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