Red Wool Saxon-ish Coat

This project started out from a day out op-shopping with my awesome friend Lynn.  This red wool coat was on sale for $7 and a conversation started about how modern clothing can be recycled into medieval styles.  A $1 black wool skirt was found in the bargain bin and so the journey to Saxon Style began!

This is the red coat, I decided to remake it as close to period style construction as I could, and hand stitch the lot.  I figured that piecing and patching would be appropriate; I can imagine that in Saxon times clothing would be recycled so the patched look would have been trendy :)



All my sewing projects become sketches and notes, otherwise I can't keep track of what I am doing and what I was planning!

The swirly wave style is cut out of the black wool skirt and tacked, then blanket stitched on.  Cutting out the swirls was painful but blanket stitching it on was really, really time consuming!!  I used an image from a ancient Greek mosaic to pattern the swirl, it also allows for adding length to the sleeves and the hem.  I cut the sleeve tops square and cut an underarm gusset to mimic the t-tunic style of patterning.  All scraps of red wool ended up being pieced together to add width and flare to the jacket.





The journey so far:  flares added from pieces, front and sleeve trims have been sewn on.  The general flared shape of the jacket is really nice, I'm not convinced the sleeves will fit properly once the gussets have been put in.  I've decided to line the whole thing, which means I have to cut the lining pieces out first before sewing the sleeves on.  So far I think it is looking really nice, it is taking a really long time though as there is only so much time I can spend sitting and blanket stitching before I go mental! 

10 May 2013 Update.

So amongst all the other projects I have on the go I spent some time sewing the lining for this coat.  I used some maroon lawn that I have a bolt roll of (hey, at $1/m wouldn't you buy the lot?) as I am determined to use up fabric that I have already rather than buy more.  Black lining probably would have looked nicer but surprisingly I didn't have enough suitable black fabric. 
I decided to bag line each piece, then whip stitch them together.  This actually will be a lot easier than the usual lining technique, and probably is a more period way of lining, not that I've researched it.

So far I have done the sleeves and the gussets.