Here I am, three weeks from Dragon Con with two busted sewing machines and I have the costume fever again. Better I fix that popped corset bone by hand than indulge in something new. Better perhaps, but that doesn’t look like its what I’m going to do.
I want to make a new frock coat and some new hats. Really. Honest. Would I lie to you? Don’t answer that question.
I ordered this (the mens costume pack) from Richard the Thread:
I expect it will go better than the reviews of the pattern would lead you to believe. (Been there, done that, the frock coat was black.)
I’m doing this frock coat in black again, provided that wires didn’t get crossed with that nice eBay dealer who is sending me 7 yards of heavy weight denim for next to nothing. ($26.50 with shipping included–for seven yards?!?!) I want to line it in 8 mome burgundy haboutai silk, which will cost more per yard than the denim, even though haboutai is relatively cheap.
I also ordered this (among others) hat pattern from Butterick:
Yes, you heard me. Butterick. Don’t laugh. I know I made the highwayman hat from a dismembered straw garden hat. Yes, I know I have Margo Anderson‘s Accessory pack, which should have all the hatmaking bits I could want (excluding the tricorn and picture hat). Yes, I do have a measuring tape and a compass. But, I like the look of the tricorn in that pack and I don’t want to go through any major destruction or physics to make another hat. Nor do I want to pay another bridal shop for a picture hat blank.
There is a better picture of the tricorn with pattern 3640 on the Butterick catalog pages.
Speaking of the highwayman hat and tricorns, I’ve begun to see a few “distressed leather Jack Sparrow” tricorns on eBay. It occurs to me that if those are distressed leather, then my highwayman hat must have been assaulted by wolverines.