‎Jane Austen Regency Napoleonic Costume Construction: Regency man's tailcoat

To go with the black silk knee breeches, a tailcoat.

I created the toile and it went together like a dream, its a great pattern, well designed, good, if minimal, markings, but the pattern notes are not brilliant, many assumptions, things glossed over, I found them a good guide as I knew all the techniques, but it would be a steep learning curve for a beginner. The toile mirrors the Country Wives pattern exactly with no changes. I used the rolled collar for the toile.

Back, this is sitting on my size 10 dummy, so looks too big, the back did need to be taken in to have a better fit by about an inch on the three back seams.

Front fits well, it was too long so I took off two inches

Sleeves are good, but way too long, I took four inches off them.

Onto the fashion fabric, its a lovely black silk damask, narrow width, with a one way pattern that meant I had to cut the right and left sides separately, remembering to turn the pattern. The fabric comes from a local second hand shop, there was 10 metres of it, a great find.

First cut for right side

Second cut for left side

Putting the silk damask together, it was a dream to sew, I was most surprised and very pleased!

So the first task is to add the side pockets, I don't do welt pockets often, so I practised on the toile to remember the process.

Creating pocket in jacket side front, no idea why camera has turned the fabric gold!

Pocket bag added

Flaps added

A view with flap held up

Next step is to add the front padding and for me, this is the lining as well. I interface the piece with modern interfacing. I didn't want to add bulk to J-L's chest area as nature has provided her with enough natural padding <grin>. I'm not sure about the interfacing, its feeling a tad stiff, I need to see what its like on.

Adding the front chest padding/lining.

As I'm not lining the jacket I extended the interfacing around the jacket front 'corner', I then turned the 1/2 seam allowance down the bottom of the jacket and I will add ribbon to the straight seams and catch stitch it down as a facing.

Facing turning the 'corner' on the jacket front

Next step is putting on the back pieces.

Back section added, pleats pressed in

Front view of tails

I stitched up the sleeves next, a two piece sleeve with a cuff attached and then put them aside to do the collar.

Attaching cuff to sleeve

I was going to use a different collar shape, but it didn't work, so I used the pattern's rolled collar that had worked so well with the toile. I used a silk linen that I had in my stash for the under collar.