Skip to main content

The American Duchess Cape Cult: Modern Monday

As a creative person, I do live in the modern world, and maintaining blogs for multiple time frames is exhausting at best. Going forward the first Monday of the month  will be "Modern Monday" and I will post about a project from after the 16th century. 




Our first project is my American Duchess Patreon Cape ca 1910. To help fight the covid 19 boredom the awesome folks at American Duchess made the cape pattern free on their Patreon page (link at bottom). Their Patreon members have access to other awesome patterns so it is worth checking out. I fell in love with this pattern and decided I was going to whip our up to fight the patriarchy  as the pattern is contemporary to the United States Suffragette movement. 


I made a mock up after scaling out the pattern to realize while it is a very adjustable pattern, it was scaled for a 38 inch bust and I am a 45 inch. The pattern thankfully is fairly simple to adjust for a larger bust.This is a great example of why we should always make a mock up. 


Below are some of my notes if you too have a larger bust & want to hack the pattern:



-I added 1 inch along all pattern piece edges to give me some ease for the velvet I decided to make my cape in, and it gave me 1/2 inch seam allowances. Remember that the original pattern is drafted without seam allowance!



- The front wrap pieces needed to be lengthened to accommodate my 45 inch bust . I added 8 inches to each front panel giving me an overlap in the back to secure the panels with a button and button hole behind my back. 

-As I lengthened the strap, I also adjusted the point of the darts 3 inches lower so they would stop around my bust point, not in my armpits.

-Another adjustment I would make on my front panels would be to widen them by 2 inches. I decided this after wearing my completed cape around for a few days since it wasn't as noticeable in the mock up fabric. As is, the straps did not fully reach under the bust as it does on several of the models and other makers who have played with the pattern. 

-Because I think collars should be dramatic, I wanted mine to flair out a bit more. I achieved this by pad stitching some wool felt into the underside of the collar to help keep the dramatic curve. 




- My cape is made from 2 cotton velvet curtains I found in the "as is" section of Ikea which I decided to up-cycle. If you are working with velvet, make sure you baste your seams rather than trusting pins. All of these curved construction seams like to crawl when working with velvet. 


I underestimated the time this cape would take. At first I thought it would be done in a day, maybe 2. The cape actually took double that to do all of the hand finishing and detail work I wanted to. 2 days to work on the pattern and mock ups, 2 days to do some machine sewing and hand finishing. Hopefully this will help speed up your own sewing adventures and to resize the pattern for a larger but with minimal headache.




American Duchess Patreon


Edits: Took down to fix some formatting issues and typos. Republished 1 hour later.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Avoid These Common Mistakes: Packing for Pennsic and SCA Camping

  #camping #mysca #societyforcreativeanachronism #glamping #pennsic This summer I've been letting myself fall back in love with the Society for Creative Anachronism. There have been some moments that have been hard for sure, but also some of my moments of greatest joy. One of the things I realized was I had completely forgotten what I need to pack in order to go camping in the different environments we see across the Western United States, at SCA events. This video does not speak in any official way for the non profit group or any of its branches. I simply wanted to share some of my pit falls and learning curves I've experiences over the years. I am a list maker. So I started planning for my second camping trip of the summer by making a list of the things that I would need to have cleaned and packed after my first trip did not go as smoothly as I had hoped earlier this summer. Towards the end of the video I give you 6 tips I've picked up from camping at these events...
Post a Comment
Read more

Making my Viking Apron Dress

  This Week's vlog is the follow up to my Viking Age Tunic dress which I posted last week. When discussing the clothing of Birka and other Norse cultures, a woolen dress is an iconic look which is functional while tending a fire or many other activities. My apron dress is inspired by the finds out of Birka. The wool I used was a light weight suiting with a 2:2 twill weave. The long seams of this dress were finished with a machine for speed, and all of the seam finishings were hand sewn. I used a woolen finishing technique I learned about while flipping through Woven into the Earth by Else Ostergard. The technique involves using wool yarn and a couching stich of sorts to encase the raw edges of the wool. The end result is a low profile and durable seam around the neck and hem of my apron dress. I love that all of the hand sewn elements of this dress start to create a decorative finish on the outside of the dress and the only extra embellishment I added was a herringbone stitch over...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Finally Made a Viking Tunic for Myself that I don't Hate

  #sewing #Viking #historicaldress My inspiration for this dress is that I never really wear the style. It looks lovely on some people, but I had just never really gotten into it or the time period around it until friends were asking me for help to make their outfits. This year I realized we would be having a local SCA arts event on April Fool's Day and it seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up and I had to do something. I decided on going incognito and making myself some Norse clothing. Even though I've done some work for others in this time period, I am by no means an expert and leaned on some of the work in this blog post: https://maidenanachronism.blogspot.com/2012/05/viking-underdress.html?m=1 I also referenced these books for some of the techniques and information I used (links are affiliate links): Woven into the Earth by Else Ostergard https://amzn.to/3o0kVb2 Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns by Lilli Fransen, Anna Norgaard and...
Post a Comment
Read more