As you may or may not know by now, in addition to my own sewing and design work I make re-enactment uniforms for a company called Military Heritage. Normally when I sew for them I make a uniform from scratch using all new (period appropriate) materials, but for this particular project I had been asked to take a pre-existing coat which had many machine details and refurbish it.  Since re-enacment season is about to begin shortly, I thought it would be a nice idea to feature this project to show that with a minimal investment in time, effort and money it is possible to make an old uniform look better than new.

Estimated time for this project (for me): 10 hours.
Goals for this project:

1. new regimental buttons
2. replace white piping
3. cut and insert a lining

Before I launch into what I did to this coat, I should mention that this was by no means a bad coat to begin with. Apart from the minor details that I worked on, the pattern it was made from was good and the coat was well cut and well assembled. Despite missing a lining, this would have been a good starter uniform coat for someone just starting out. This coat may also have been a good film costume for an extra. Given its good shape and good construction, it was well worth putting additional time and effort into this coat to bring it up to the next level.

At the top of this post is a photo of the coat at the beginning of the overhaul process. It is a Glengarry Light Infantry coat c. 1812. If you’d like some background on the unit, please check out the Official Website of the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles. Unfortunately I didn’t have the fore thought to photograph before I started disassembling it. From this photo you can see that the original coat had plain white metal buttons (without regimental markings) and the white piping around the cuffs and shoulder straps is quite large and overwhelming in its appearance. If you look closely at the centre front and waist you may also be able to see a row of machine topstitching – the topstitching was neatly executed, but is not correct for this period.

To the left is a detailed photo of he cuff and shoulder strap which shows the original piping. The piping on the coat had been made of white wool flannel which had been cut in narrow strips (see bottom right of photo). Normally a white wool tape (twill weave) is used for this piping (see top right of photo). Replacing the flannel with the wool tape will give a crisper appearance to the piping.

To replace the piping I had to first pick apart the cuff and the shoulder strap and remove the existing piping. To prepare the new piping, I folded the wool tape (approximately 1/2″ to 5/8″ thick) in two and gave it a good hard press. The new piping is attached by laying it in behind the black shoulder strap (or cuff facing) leaving only about 1/8″ of white peeing out from the raw edge of the strap (or cuff facing) and stitching it in place by hand using a prickstitch (also refered to as a pickstitch). Prick stitching is an important skill for re-enactment uniforms as it is used for topsitching. On melton cloth, if the prickstitch is small enough, the stitching will be nearly invisible.

Once the piping was fastened to the black shoulder strap and cuff facing, the underside of the shoulder strap was re-fastened using a whip stitch and the cuff facing was reattached to the coat using the prickstitch. The completed shoulder strap and cuff are shown below.

Once the piping was all done, I switched out all of the buttons on the coat. all the buttons (with the exception of the centre front and the two which secure the shoulder strap) are ornamental buttons. Since the buttons are non-functional they are set into the surface of the coat to give them a clean appearance – otherwise they flop about and dangle on the surface of the coat. Originally the plain white metal buttons were secured by poking the shank of the button through the coat (using an awl to create the hole by parting the fibres of the wool rather than cutting a hole) and tied in place using a long piece of 1/4″ twill tape to tie all of the buttons together – a low cost solution to attaching a large number of ornamental buttons. In my opinion there is absolutely nothing wrong with this method of button attachment, it is quite ingenious and so long as nothing tugs on the buttons they will stay nicely in place. I took a photo of this technique prior to removing the buttons from the coat.

Instead of tying the ornamental buttons back onto the coat, I used button rings and washers. Rings and washers are available from Military Heritage if you can’t find them through you local fabric and notions store. To use the rings and clips, you simply push the shank of the button through the cloth, place the washer over the shank and thread the ring (sort of like a miniature split ring keychain) through the shank of the button. The ring holds the button to the coat and the washer makes it such that the button stays flush with the surface of the fabric and does not pull through when tugged upon by crossbelts and other kit paraphernalia.

Here is a closeup of the new regimental buttons. In this photo you will also note that I picked out all of the machine topstitching that was visible in the image at the top of this page and I replaced it with prickstitching.  Owing to the short period of time alotted to this project nothing was done to alter the button holes. The button holes had been done by machine stitching around the edge of the desired buttonholes and snipping the holes with a fine tipped pair of scissors. If I had wanted to spruce up the buttonholes I could have done a buttonhole stitch by hand over top of the existing machine stitching using the machine stitching as a guide.

The last part of this project involved creating a lining for the coat.  To make this easier for myself I had disassembled half of the coat at the beginning of the project (as seen at the top of this article. Once the coat was apart I pressed the pieces flat as possible and layed them out on my lining fabric (white wool flannel). the lining will have the same seam allowance as the original coat along the neck, shoulder, armhole, side-back seam and back seam. Along the hem and the back vent I added an additional inch of fabric so that I would have plenty to turn under and stitch down. The centre front of the lining was cut back a little bit to meet up with the edge of the centre front facing (shown above in the photo which illustrates the twill tape technique of tying on ornamental buttons).

Once cut the lining can be dropped in in a number of different ways once the body of the coat is reassembled. In the first method you would completely assemble the lining and sew it in by hand all the way around the hem, facings and armholes. Alternately you might do what I do and construct the lining in two halves. While in two halves I sew the lining to the arm holes (right side of the lining to the inside of the armhole) and then once the armholes are stitched I put the two right sides of the lining together and sew the centre back seam by machine – this technique reinforces the armholes / sleeve attachment and all of t seam allowance ends up neatly tucked underneath the lining of the coat. This technique will also reduce the chance of the thread breaking / lining tearing out of the armhole which occasionally happens when the armhole lining is secured by hand. To finish dropping in the lining by this technique the lining is sewn around the hem and the facings by hand. Once the lining is dropped in, the centre back vent must be tacked in place using a whip stitch. The centre back vent should be secured so that the left side of the vent overlaps the right side of the vent.

After the lining is dropped in the collar is applied in much the same way as the cuffs (using a prickstitch). The black collar facing is piped using the same white wool tape as the cuff and shoulder strap. The inside of the collar is dark green and should be reinforced with interfacing. The interfacing should be a sew in interfacing rather than a fusible. I have used a heavy linen interfacing, but hair cloth (horse hair interfacing) is equally good. The collar is about 3 1/2″ tall and will flop over or stretch awkwardly if its not well supported. If you want the stitching of the interfacing to be invisible you might consider pad stitching the interfacing to the collar, but in this instance the interfacing was tacked in using machine stitching in a concentric arrangement (rows 1/2″ apart). Machine stitching is permissible on the interior of the collar since it would not be visible when the coat is being worn. If the coat is for display or will often be seen off of the body, pad stitching the collar might be preferable. The image below shows two views of the collar interfacing machine sewn to the collar – the white piping had not yet been attached to the black collar facing.

Once the collar was popped on I gave it all a good pressing with my steam iron and that was it!… Finished. It really was that simple. For someone doing this at home, the greatest cost is the replacement buttons, but they are totally worth every penny. The details that instantly make one uniform look smarter than the next are the buttons, the appropriate use of hand stitching, neat trimmings and a good press. Pressing melton cloth properly takes a good heavy iron with plently of steam and a wooden tailors block. Once you iron the seam you pound it with the block and press down the block on top of the seam to absorb the heat from the cloth. Pounding the seam helps keep the seam open and taking up the heat from the fabric helps set the seam flat and open. If you don’t cool the seam you’ve just pressed and you move the jacket about the seam will lose its crisp appearance. Somewhere in my stash of tailoring books I have a great Province of Ontario publication on proper pressing techniques, which I will dig out, scan and post in the Craft Tools and Ideas section of this page.