1776 Men's Military or Civilian Coat Pattern

As a complete novice to sewing and costume making, I was very hesitant to buy this pattern and try to make something as ambitious as this frock coat, but I made a great decision. The pattern instructions are very easy to follow and the coat, with some minor alterations, has turned out amazing (the alterations were to convert it into a 1774 style British Royal Navy officer's coat). For the most part it was fairly straight forward, but if you get into any trouble, just search youtube (I had to in order to figure out how to make button holes).Bottom line is the instructions are easy to understand for a newbie and the coat looks fantastic when finished.

This is the most frustrating pattern I have ever used. I have made a number of historical costumes, several from scratch making my own patterns - but this is my first men's costume. I had to do several hours of internet research on regimental coat construction, and then wound up purchasing a Butterick pattern (shoot me now) just for the cuff instructions. It took me a good hour to decide which collar to use because there is no instruction as far as which collar correlates with which picture on the pattern front. The sleeves took forever to set because there is only one dot on the sleeve and one on the coat front as a guide. The cut of the pattern itself is fine. Several have posted that the arms are set oddly, but this is appropriate construction for the time. The coat was supposed to encourage correct posture: shoulders back, chest out. The cuff instruction was virtually nonexistent. It tells you to sew the side seams and goes into detail about this simple step. It then simply says to sew the lining to the cuff, and there is no instruction at all on how to attach the cuff to the sleeve. Butterick 3072 gives great instructions for this step. You should not need to spend hours doing research to use a commercial pattern. I did find an online pdf "Regimental Coat, Commander In Chief's Guard Guide for Instruction by Judith Wicker" available for free download, this includes wonderful information. I also found drunktailor.blogspot.com to be helpful, he has great closeup photographs of individual steps. In short, I give the pattern itself 4 stars, the instructions 0 stars.

Received on or before posted time. Pattern itself arrived in good shape. On first looks, this is not a pattern for beginners, and I'll be getting into it in the next few days.

Don't be fooled, being somewhat of a newbie to costume making I made the mistake of buying this pattern based off of Master Copperfield review that it was easy to follow. I needed ALOT of help trying to figure out the pattern being a novice I struggled a lot with the vague instructions. I had the same problem as the people at smoke and fire patterns had about the arm holes being way off and had to spend a long time making adjustments. Strange it makes me wonder if this pattern is a copy...(in the above post) "search YouTube for making button holes"? There are no functioning buttons on this coat because the lapels are a separate piece from the coat making it not aesthetically capable of being worn with the lapels closed making buttons only for decoration.Even though it was a struggle and the coat will be unable to be worn with the lapels closed I am glad I stuck with it because I am surprisingly pleased with the way its turning out, I know it will look very nice in the end. (I might upload a picture if I can)I do not recommend to a novice unless you have someone experienced to give you a lot of help.

I was very happy with having all three sizes included (32-34-36) and the historical detail provided. Actually was able by looking at the differences in the pattern for the three sizes to make my own pattern for my grandson, age 8. I just matched the changes to make it another 3 sizes smaller, and it worked perfectly! The only difficulty I had was what to do with the lining when it came to the side vents--I couldn't quite figure out what the instructions were telling me, but researched the problem online and followed the only instruction that made sense, which was to make coat and lining the same way and hem them separately. That worked fine. I got metal buttons with stars online (I used 20, half of the 40 size 36 called for). This coat was a big hit with my grandson, who is fascinated with the history of the Revolutionary War.

the only thing is the pattern is printed on both sides

It is how it has to be. Very faithful.m