What do you do when your dogs chew through the center of your favorite Pottery Barn duvet cover that just so happens to be Indienne, a fabric pattern popular between 17th and 19th centuries? Cut it up and make it into 18th century clothing, duh! Determined to expand my 18th century wardrobe with available materials and my mediocre sewing skills, I grabbed my JP Ryan 18th century ladies jacket pattern and never looked back.
The first jacket I made with the pattern was for my Claire costume from Outlander (Season 1), but it’s wool and pretty much too hot for Houston weather unless we have a rare cold front. The duvet cover is was a nice light linen and should be breathable enough for our heat (if not for necessary undergarment layers). It was certainly worth a try! For this jacket, I cut JP Ryan’s full length view B without any modifications from the pattern. I made it so quickly, I have no pictures of its assembly after cutting!
I like that there is some brown in the pattern, so it can be worn with my original brown Claire skirt, and may even match the taupe knitted cowl as well. I did want warmer weather options though, so I purchased grey linen suiting and made a proper petticoat.
The great part about this fun pattern is the stomacher options (not to mention stomachers take only about half hour a piece to make), so I tried the jacket with grey, matching Indienne, cream (not pictured), and taupe (not pictured). Do you think I need a vermilion or coral stomacher as well? Because I can be talked into that!
The ability to dress the jacket up or down with a hat or jewelry is nice as well. I think Hamilton & Young’s Outlander inspired pearls look lovely with the jacket. I feel like Claire would have worn Jamie’s mother’s pearls at a fancy Cross Creek function (but not a bonnet…never a bonnet).
Although I made the duvet/Indienne jacket for warmer Texas weather, it traveled with me to North Carolina where I tried everything on and enjoyed the cool mountain air as I imagined Claire Fraser would when she and Jamie reached the Americas (come on, Season 4!). Maybe not in Houston summers, but in North Carolina I was quite comfortable!
Also on the blog: 18th century pockets, petticoats, jacket, stays, a stomacher, and a drawstring bag.
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Awesome work !!
Thank you Sonja!!
Oh my goodness!!! This is the PERFECT blog!
I found you when looking for patterns for 18th century pockets.
My daughter (now 20 y.o.) and I just returned from a visit to Colonial Williamsburg where of course, my daughter informed me that she could not possibly visit unless she had a colonial-style dress/gown to wear. (I owed her one. When she was maybe 10-11 y.o. I worked very hard to make a blue silk gown like Felicity… I failed miserably for several reasons but one reason was one of the specs for the gown was a reversible stomacher, etc. But I had no idea how gowns of that era were actually constructed. SOooooo, I still have over $300. worth of royal blue silk dupioni, partially cut and sewn for the gown that was never finished.)
Fast forward to present: we had a cut of nearly 6 yards of a tightly woven cardinal-colored cotton in the stash and a Simplicity costume pattern for maybe 18th century-ish dresses. (Not the more historically accurate one they have now.) So I got the dress made for her. I’m now ashamed of course, because the dress is clearly a costume pattern with zipper back, etc., but she was thrilled with the dress and looked stunning, walking up and down DoG street in Colonial Williamsburg.
She encouraged me to rent a costume to wear while visiting. I declined but was so happy to see how the fashions were made, the pieces, etc. I am quite certain the entire project would have taken less time (and been appropriate) if I had made it with the different pieces as was done at that time in history. Your blog is PERFECT!
One note about historical attire: My family lives on the gulf coast of Florida. So yeah, heat and humidity are normal. But visiting the historic triangle in Virginia and being in the midst of the appropriately dressed interpreters, I had to shake my head. The attire was appropriate for people living in say, England. But for a warmer climate, all of the layers didn’t make sense. If you look at what we are to believe was the clothing the indigenous people wore, they dressed for practicality. But one thing I did note when at Yorktown, was that especially after we threw off the yoke of the British crown and focused on building our nation, it seems the fashions relaxed and became more practical according to the climate and the seasons. God Bless America.
Thank you so much for your awesome blog.
Oh Dee Dee, thank you so much for your note. It sounds like you and your daughter had such a great time, these are the memories I’d love to share with my mother as well (she’s in her 60s…and well, maybe I should make plans to take her there). I’m still learning but happy to provide these tutorials for whatever they are worth. We live in Texas and have traveled to the United Kingdom…talk about a huge difference in the elements! I love wool for the feel but I’ve been using linen lately, which is way more appropriate for the heat and humidity here.