Ed Week 10 and 11: Dressing Freder

During the Easter break I went home, back at home with full access to my craft supplies we decided that a little proof of concept was in order; because the year received an extension on the project I was able to take the fortnight I was home for the holidays to replicate the clothes I designed for Freder I've made a lot of clothes before but I wasn't sure I'd be able to complete these in the time I had; even without his boots and trousers the three garments I hoped to make had varying levels of complexity, both because of the decoration but also because I knew I would have to make custom patterns for a lot of the garments.


10 yards of heavy and medium weight velveteen, two yards of teal cotton, four bobbins of cotton, a 22 inch zip and ten yards of golden bias Binding

The inner coat was a simple matter of modifying the pattern of a kimono to have sloped shoulders and no sleeves, but the tunic was slightly more complicated; I couldn't find a pattern to modify, so I ended up making one from scratch - I realized that this garment was similar to a tunic I made last year so I took a pattern off that and modified it so the zip went up the back instead of the front. I also added sleeves using a pattern for sleeves I have. For the collar itself I had to construct the pattern from scratch with paper before I made it in fabric and attached it to the body of the garment.

For the Cloak I had to go completely off-pattern. One of the main reasons for making this garment was to check that the cloak itself would stay on and be wearable; because of the way that it is worn there's not a lot attacking it to the shoulders and it's weight meant that we weren't sure if it wouldn't fall off the back when it was worn.

to make the cloak I had to improvise a pattern, in the end it looked like this;

The pattern for the cloak

Though I still need to finish off the costume and add the golden decoration the costume is mostly complete and the cloak actually stays on very well and is very comfortable. We've also noticed that it tends to affect the stance of the wearer. As the original intent of the clothes Freder wears is to create a regal silhouette it's nice to know that not only does it look it, the clothes make you feel it as well.