Nic's Wedding Jacket

We have decided to set our wedding in 1861, which is one of our favourite periods for clothing. Nic wants a South Australian Volunteer Rifle Officer's Uniform. This has been quite a challange for me however as I have never made a man's jacket before or worked with melton wool. We had a lot of difficulty sourcing the correct wool, braides, trims and badges, but we are very happy with what we ended up with. Nic purchased the Period Impressions - Enlisted Man's Frock Coat, which is close to the desired shape with only a few alterations. I also had 2 photos and the military tailors description to assist.

The original photo of a South Australian Volunteer Rifle Officer.

I had to trace the Austrian Knots on the sleeves with silver and red cords.

The sleeves are mirror images of each other.

Trying to work out the collar decorations.

As the wool is so thick I had to stich it down to flatten it.

After the wool was flattened I Pinned then slip stiched the linning to the collar.

Finished lining

Finished Collar.

Buttons on the shoulders, I hand sewed it on through the wool only using the gap in the sleeve.

.... There will be more as I finish it

Well it has been hard and taken longer than I would have liked but it is finally finished. Unfortunately I broke my arm 3 weeks ago and have only now been able to get enough movement to finish the hand stiching needed to finish the sleeves, hook and bars and the skirt hems.

The finished Jacket being modelled by the handsome Nic.