“Accidental burn test” or “lets pretend I planned it shall we”

My current project is fighting me every step of the way.  I need a cloak for earlier Victorian years so I don’t freeze to death at a Dickens Christmas “thing” I have this December.  In central Canada, December is the beginning of a 3 month frosty period that can only be compared to walking wet and naked into a deep freeze. I decided I wanted something like this…

Agusta Auctions 1840-60

I wanted the colors to go with a few dresses and I wanted not to spend a million dollars.

I was looking in the dark brown tones of the woman behind Judy Dench (don’t you just love her?)

I went with a huge piece of synthetic fabric (inexpensive).  First obstacle: I thought I had enough to use as both fashion fabric and lining. I had enough if I had no intention of moving my arms.  So I found another fabric to line it.  It was in my stash and it matched my trim so lets pretend I planned it shall we. I used the formally designated lining fabric to piece together a bigger piece for the fashion fabric.

Second obstacle: The above pictures look like 3 rectangles gathered up.  Easy. And yet my bigger piece of fabric did not want to drape nicely.  It rode up in the back for one, and I decided that once the inner lining was added for warmth it would be too thick and bunchy – it was already too bunchy without the inner lining and lining.  Well, I always wanted to try draping and this seemed like an easy project for that so lets pretend I planned it shall we.  So I did some trimming and shaping at the shoulders and neck.  Now I am wondering if I am moving to far away from the shape and technique used in the mid-Victorian era.  But there is no help for it.  I just didn’t want to look like this:

Third obstacle: the felt, flannel and fleece I planned to use for inner lining were now not wide enough.   So I spent a huge chunk of time piecing that together.  I zig zagged that to avoid huge chunky seams inside the cape.  Piecing is authentic right?  Zig zagging isn’t though!

Forth obstacle: (and the one that made me grind my teeth and opt to move away from the sewing room).  I went to press my seams…because that is what you do.  If I had any doubt about my fabric being synthetic, they are gone now because I forgot to check the temperature of my iron and my fabric melted.  

Let us pretend that I wanted to know for sure what the fiber content was and I planned it that way shall we? A small mercy is this was only the smaller collar part and it wasn’t the side that was already trimmed.  Annoying but not catastrophic.

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