Linen Frock Coat

Before we sew the skirt darts closed, it’s best to attach the triangular piece to the main skirt while everything is flat. Lay out the skirt as shown, wrong sides up. The seam on the triangular piece is much longer, but don’t worry, that’s exactly what we want. Place the right sides together, allowing the …

This being a linen or cotton coat, and therefore not taking to ironwork, we replace all of that ironwork with a number of darts! In general it’s easiest to sew the darts before doing any other work on the coat. Armscye Dart We’ll start with the armscye dart, which should be marked on the wrong …

Now that we’ve got all of the pieces cut out, before separating the two halves, we must use threads to mark the chalked inlays and darts more durably, and transfer those marks to the piece underneath. This is done with a stitch called the tailor’s tack. First, cut a lengthy piece of contrasting thread – …

Before laying out your pattern pieces and cutting, it’s important to protect your fabric from possible shrinkage and to iron it out smoothly. The easiest and best way is to gently hand wash your fabric, and allow it to line dry until slightly damp. Then take your iron and press the fabric. On linen, this …

Since this is an unlined frock coat, an extra 1/4″ allowance needs to be added to each seam allowance we’d normally include, to leave room for folding and felling the finished seam. Where Devere includes a seam allowance in the draft, only 1/4″ is added. Forepart On the forepart, add a 1/4″ inch seam along …

Here is my basic bodice pattern. This was drafted straight off measurements I had taken of myself, which is not recommended, but it should work for me! The one area I’m not entirely happy with is the armscye, which looks a bit too high. I’ll adjust that later, after a fitting. We’ll begin this class …