Green tweed cloak is cut out

The cold snap is upon us,  and I really need something for the wait on the open air platform each morning. Also at night if it's windy. Plus TeslaFest is late in July so I may need it over a steampunk outfit.

I still can't decide if I'll dye the pink wool before making it,  so I cut out the green houndstooth tweed.  The lining for the hood/front sections is also from stash,  and thankfully in the to be folded pile.

A silky smooth lining isn't a good idea in the hood as that would slip right off your head. I also have some trim in the stash that I'm deciding whether to use or not.  There's @1.5m left from one piece,  and two small rolls of 2.1m.

Red, Pink or dye+pink cloak decisions

Yesterday I forgot to take the red wool to work to cut out on the large meeting table after work. Ugh.  Last Sunday I pre-shrank 5 woollen fabrics - these 3 are on my cloak list.  The red for scarlet regency,  the pink for a backup wool cloak and the green tweed check for steampunk as we've got a new event this July in Sydney.

I'll use any of them in real life in our few weeks of winter, as I find it easier to regulate how warm I am than a coat. I haven't even had a coat for around 25 years,  and it was teal.  No black coat or suit for me,  much as I love crows and ravens.

The pink is 100% wool and dyes really well,  so I can change it if I don't want to be a short wide vibrant pink blob on the horizon. Then I could make it a colour more likely to be worn c1800. That's the cut I'm aiming for.

If I don't dye it,  then I have two short lengths of vintage cotton I can use for lining the facing and hood. Back in the day they used silk (pics look like taffeta not crepe de chine) and my stash only has ecru,  putty green and cyclamen pink satin IR crepe de chine. The wrong pink for this.  Decisions.

a second cloak added to my sewing list

The beginning of last year I was drooling over a plaid wool cloak in the Met and a similar plaid fabric for sale at FFC. It's true I may have spent a lot of time in museum websites, and looking at FFC fabrics.  I would even have been tempted to buy the orange plaid except that yellow and orange make me look severely jaundiced. Not just a little, but deathly and nobody wants to look their worst. Well no reasonable person. I'm not that crazy.

Well early in June this year I came across some plaid wool fabric being sold on ebay AU during a sewing studio clean up.  And there was 5 metres, at under $10 pm. I bagsed it in a heartbeat because there's enough for a regency cloak, and it's lightweight which suits me in the Sydney climate. Most importantly the colours suit me ... muted green, mauve/grey and black. I've hugged it a couple of times since it arrived in the mail


See how lightweight it is:


On pinterest I've tagged 5-6 extant plaid/tartal cloaks from the early 1800s including a fashion plate.  They all seem to have a collar and capelet/s and no hood. Which is a bit sadmaking as there are definitely plain and print cloaks with hoods in this time, but I haven't found a plaid cloak with hood until mid 19th century.

The fashion plate is appealing, found on Robin's Plaid Regency page though in my fabric it'd be less vibrand and more muted like the cloak in the Killerton collection fo the National Trust UK (item number 1360836, c1820-30, lady's travelling cloak).



Part of me - the heart part - wants to make this for the regency weekend at the end of October, but my head is telling me to make the hooded scarlet wool cloak/cape first. Partly cos I've had the fabric longer.  Also I know that I tend to plan more than I can achieve, so a plain hooded cloak is easier and more likely.