James Williams
Historical Tailor
Today I worked on cutting out a silk waistcoat, drafted from Devere, 1866. I obtained the silk brocade from Needle and Thread in Pennsylvania a few years ago, and plan to wear this with my linen frock coat for summer. To start off, I drafted the proportionate waistcoat pattern with my personal measurements.
While making over two dozen frock coats for Connecticut Valley Field Music, I inevitably came across the issue of having to fit women into a man’s coat. For the first couple of women’s coats, I used the same Devere’s pattern as the men. This worked somewhat with certain builds. But I finally came across some …
Before the first stitch is made, and before the drafting pencil ever touches the paper, measurements must be taken. When measuring, the goal is to obtain as much information about the client's figure as possible. Since most of my work involves Devere's Handbook of Practical Cutting, 1866, I'm using his methods of measuring.
Learning to draft clothing patterns can be very intimidating at first. There are pages and pages of instructions to read, such as with Devere's manual, or it can be full of points to draft out, such as with a coat pattern. It might be a good idea to start learning to draft by creating a woman's skirt draft. They have fewer points to draft, and fewer things can go wrong. I came across an article featuring three different methods of drafting a skirt by A. H. Scriven, from the Sartorial Gazette, August 1915. I like the part where the author states, "A school child, with a little knowledge of geometry, can both draft them and understand how the result is arrived at."
I’ve been drafting patterns using a copy of Louis Devere’s The Handbook of Practical Cutting on the Centre Point System (1866) for almost two years now. Of the available drafting manuals from the Civil War period, this seems to be the most complete and easiest to learn. Some Mathematics One of the more difficult concepts …