Fitting Proper Author:Sharon Ann Burnston For women, shift, stays, several gowns, petticoats and shortgowns are shown, including one shortgown with matching petticoat, and caps. For men, there are patterns taken from coats, breeches, a lovely shirt with a frill at the neck opening, waistcoat and coat. There are also some less usual items: a calash (women's hood with a collapsible fr... more »amework), two banyans (men's indoor garments, similar to a dressing gown), a man's greatcoat with for capes over the shoulders, and pair of pattens (overshoes - you'll need blacksmithing and woodcrafting skills to make those!). There are also accessories: embroidered wallets, pockets (one made from patchwork, see back cover for a color picture) and pinballs, stockings, apron and mitts. Another nice feature of the book is the inclusion of children's garments - there are a baby's shirt, a toddler's skirt, a gown for a 5 or 6-year old and breeches for a 4- or 5-year old boy.
All patterns are drawn on a grid with 1" squares and are presented clearly and with sufficient annotations to make up the garment. The garments vary in difficulty: those items that would probably have been made at home are fairly simple (shirt, shift, banyan, petticoat, apron and maybe the caps); those made by professional dressmakers or tailors are more complicated. The clothes are mostly of Quaker provenance, which means that they are rather unadorned but, as the author puts it, "normative" for their place and time. Many of the items can be traced back to their original owners.
In the appendix, the author discusses clothes inventories of the 18th century and lists some original inventories, thus giving an overview of what the wardrobe of someone living in the 18th century would have looked like.« less