Romantic History Historical Clothing: November 2009

November 10, 2009

At a recent reenactment I saw several men wearing overalls made from the Past Patterns overall pattern. Since my husband David *always* wears modern blue denim overalls (along with a collared plaid or check shirt, long or short sleeve depending on the season) I was very interested in obtaining the pattern so I could make him a period correct set to wear. As of late he has decided to go "old fashioned" in his wardrobe and has asked me to make him some new clothes.

As far as I know, the PP overall pattern is the only one available for 19th century. My concern with it was that the style the overalls are is documented only 1870-1901. That is a tad late for David's liking since he is working on developing a pre-war impression and wants clothes in the style of the late 1840's, 1850's and 1860's.

Mrs. G. kindly offered to send me her copy of the pattern so I could look it over before deciding if I wanted to purchase my own. I was most interested in the documentation sheet since all the patterns from Past Patterns are extremely well documented.

After looking over the documentation sheet I found that earlier overalls (pre 1870's) were usually constructed with a seperate apron front piece as opposed to the cut-in-one apron that marks the later style overalls. Also, earlier overalls tended to have a side seam down the outside of the leg.

I looked up the early paintings that were noted to see a full color full view of the line drawings included in the documentation sheet.

Here is "In The Woodshed" by James Clonney, c. 1838. In this painting, the apron is a clear seperate piece sewn to the waist seam of the trousers and is made of two pieces.

And here is "The Power of Music" by William Sidney Mount, c. 1847. This also shows a two piece, seperate apron as well as a fly in the crutch seam - something David specifically requested since he wears his overalls *as* trousers, not over trousers as was done in period.

A line drawing of a photograph from 1865 shows the back of overalls, with straps crossing over the shoulders from a rounded, raised back waist line. A sketch of c. 1860-1910 overalls from the Smithsonian also shows the crossed straps from a rounded, raised back waistline.

Since David already has a good fitting trouser pattern that we have adjusted and altered to his height and preference (although, since he has lost 35 lbs. over the summer they are a little baggier now) I decided to take what I had learned about mid 19th century overall styles and modify his existing trouser pattern for an overall pattern. Here is the sketch I made showing what I wanted the final overalls to look like:

To make the pattern I took his trouser pattern and laid it on fresh paper. The back of his trouser pattern has a yoke, so I just put the two pieces together and traced around the yoke and trouser back as one piece. I added 2.5" in height to the front and back trouser pieces to take the place of the waistband that is on his regular trousers. I added 4" extra in height at the center back, tapering down to the side seam in a rounded shape. I extended the length of the fly 2.5" and made an apron piece for the front of the overalls, taken the dimensions for it from the bib on his modern overalls. (since then, David has requested that on the next pair I make, I make the top of the bib wider, more along the lines of the 1838 painting shown above).

I decided to make 3 welt pockets for the overalls since I couldn't find documentation for patch pockets and welt pockets are common for men's garments of this period. David uses and needs a lot of pockets. They are arranged in the same style as vest pockets with two on the lower waist level and one on the breast.

I hate making welt pockets. But they are easier than many other kinds of pockets.

I cut everything from a dark moss green small corderoy we got locally. From my limited knowlege of the use of corderoy for use in the mid-19th century I think it is all right to use as for a very working class garment for menswear. David also likes corderoy and it is heavier weight and, he says, quite comfortable.

I used black cotton sateen for the fly and for the pockets.

After I made the pattern and cut everything out, I first put in the welt pockets just to get them out of the way. Then I made the fly and the four buttonholes for the overlap portion of the fly. Those two parts of the construction took the longest, I think.

Then I made the apron. I have no idea what is the correct method of construction of these type of overalls so I used basic mid 19th century techniques gleaned from many different sources and garments for these. I don't know if it will be particuarly accurate to overalls but it is what makes sense to me. So I made the apron with two layers so the welt pocket is sandwiched between the layers. This also makes the apron sturdier since it will have most of the stress from wearing. I sewed the apron front to the apron back right sides together and turned and topstitched it.

I then sewed the side and crutch seams and sewed in the placket strips on each side of the overalls and pinned them to cover the seam allowance. Then I sewed the apron to the trouser front, right sides together, along just the outer layer of apron. Once that seam was sewn I pressed the seam upwards, and turned under the raw edge of the inside apron and pinned it to the seam allowance at the waist, enclosing all the raw edges.

That is all I have done so far. The pictures are horrible. I had no idea how difficult it was to photograph green corderoy! It comes out so dark and looking almost black. They look much better in person, I assure you. :)

David tried them on last night and I think they will work very well. All I have to do today is make the straps, finish slip stitching the inside apron to the seam allowance and do the hem. Then work buttonholes and put buttons on the sides and also at the top of the apron for the straps. But that should go fairly quickly, I think.

Love,

Sarah

Later Afternoon:

I like s'mores. I'm eating two right now. I like it when little boys take naps all together at the same time so I can finish a current sewing project!

I had forgot to mention when I posted earlier that I had to figure out how to finish the back waistline. Since the edge is curved, a turned hem would not have really been practical. A bias strip could have worked but that would have wasted fabric so I decided to cut a simple facing, about 3" wide, and sewed it to the back waistline.

Once the slip stitching was finished and the back waistline was finished I made the straps; two rectangles with finished measurements of about 32" x 2". I positioned each strap 6.5" from the center back seam and topstitched them down by machine, going over each seam line twice for sturdiness, and sewing an X in the center.

For the hem I turned up .5" and then 1" to the inside of each leg and sewed very close to the folded edge by machine.

I sewed tin buttons to the fly to fasten it and then made 4 buttonholes at the sides and top of the bib, each corner. I sewed on corresponding largeish wood buttons as the last thing. Eventually I want to replace the wood buttons with rubber ones but for now the wood was all I had that was big enough to work well. I have had bad experiences in the past with wood buttons falling apart with washing but these are supposed to be treated so they don't fall apart. I guess we'll see how well they hold up!

I'm really happy with how they came out and how easy they were to make. It is not often that something I make comes out exactly as I pictured it, but these did. I hope David is as happy with them.

Here is an overall view of the finished garment: (sorry this picture is not very good. The overalls are just so long, it was hard to get all of them in one picture. I'll try to get some pictures of David wearing them this weekend when he is off of work).