Doctor Who - Tom Baker's S17 Frock Coat/Costume

The pants are done except for the hem on one side. I finished the frock coat pattern today and so far I've cut out about 2/3 of the wool pieces. My goal for the night is to finish the wool and maybe the velvet upper collar. Tomorrow I'll cut all the lining pieces and the pockets and start sewing everything together.
 
Pants are hemmed, all the wool pieces are cut and I sewed together what I could (front panels, lapel facings, back, sleeves), and I interfaced the sleeve cuffs with some fusible. I unrolled my lining fabric this morning to discover that the wrinkles were set too firmly for me to press them out without damaging the acetate, so I had to bring it to the dry cleaner and I'll be picking it up hopefully wrinkle free and undamaged tomorrow at noon.

I also cut all of the himo pieces today, which was more difficult than I had anticipated for the back, because of the princess seams. Because of that, I haven't started pad stitching yet. That's the first thing on my to-do list for tomorrow. I'll post some pictures soon, I've just been too busy to take any.
 
At this point I'm not sure if I'll finish in time. If the coat weren't covered in trim it wouldn't be a problem, but the extra few hours to stitch that in by hand might be too much. I got all the pad stitching done today and cut most of the lining pieces. I've managed to get pretty sick and had no energy left after all that. I'm hoping to get 16 hours in tomorrow, because that's the only way I can get all the pockets put it, pieces sewn together, and the trim applied in time.

OK, some pictures. First, the front interfacing, assembled and marked.
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And the coat as it is right now.
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There's some buckling at the seams because I followed some bad advice stitching the interfacings together at the seams. Tomorrow I'm going to cut them down and tack them to the seam allowance like my tailoring book says.
 
Well, I woke up even sicker today, and 4 hours later than I planned to. This isn't happening. I might wear the costume without the coat, or not. Even if I was feeling fine, I doubt there are enough hours in the day to finish it on time, and I'd definitely make mistakes at that speed. So I'll get back to work on this next week, and I'll probably focus on Smith stuff today, because making a pair of jeans and a bow tie in a day is nothing compared to this.
 
Well, I woke up even sicker today, and 4 hours later than I planned to. This isn't happening. I might wear the costume without the coat, or not. Even if I was feeling fine, I doubt there are enough hours in the day to finish it on time, and I'd definitely make mistakes at that speed. So I'll get back to work on this next week, and I'll probably focus on Smith stuff today, because making a pair of jeans and a bow tie in a day is nothing compared to this.

Sorry to hear you're not feeling well :(

From what I've read so far in this thread, you've really made some good progress - take your time, and don't rush things. That's a mistake I've made many a time, and each time something went wrong.
 
I hope you feel better soon, too! Looks like you have been making good progress.

I really like the picture with the pattern pieces spread all over the floor and couch...
Actually my favorite photo is the back of the coat- I like seeing it come together...
 
Wow, so it's been a long time. Short version: I was sick for 3 months, first strep throat, then the flu, then I got strep again. I still have some undiagnosable problem with my inner ear, but other than that I'm healthy. The reason this costume hasn't advanced at all though is because of the trim. It really hit me a while after Gallifrey One that the rayon bias foldover I had was way too dark. It was basically black and there was nothing I could do about it. For a long time I was planning to dye it to the right color from white, but the process destroys the trim and takes away all of the shine. IMO if it doesn't keep that shiny quality it just looks like garbage. Well today I was stopping by some places in LA and I did the usual check for brown rayon bias foldover (which is actually a really rare color for some reason) and instead I found the real trim. Not a close approximation, the real stuff.



It's a much finer weave and more grid-like, not as diagonal in weave. I'm still pretty damn excited that I found this stuff.

I've also made some headway with the buttons. I still have the resin casts from before:



But I also recently found two additional sets of close enoughs that are arguably better options. First, a set of slightly oversized buttons that lack the texture of the original but are the correct color:



And second is the exact same buttons cast in a light tan:



Right now I'm thinking the best way to go might be to drop the tan buttons in a vat of poly dye and see if I can tint them, kind of like how people tint their Daft Punk visors. Not sure though, and I'm still keeping my eyes open for the exact buttons. I now know that they were made in Canada in the mid-70s.
 
Thanks! I got an extra coat worth of trim, shoot me a PM if you're still interested.

I forgot to mention also that after wearing the pants I made to Gally for a day, the crotch wore almost all the way through. The fabric isn't very good quality I guess. I was in the mid-west earlier this month and went into a Hancock fabrics and found basically the same fabric in polyester instead of wool for cheap. Normally I would be really opposed to polyester, but at least I know that stuff will hold up. I have to remake the pants and shirt anyway, as there are slight fit and style adjustments I want to make. If anybody wants the current shirt and/or the worn out pants (a patch might fix them right up, at least for infrequent outings) send me a PM and we'll talk.
 
Change of plans, keeping the shirt and pants for at least one more con. Upon closer inspection, the pants are actually worn through at all, they just have a sort of felted spot. If it doesn't get any worse then it's not a huge deal. The shirt will have to go eventually, but it's passable for now. Reason for the change is because I discovered while trying on the half coat that the chest is best described as billowy. WAAAAAAY too much room in it. The front panels have to be scrapped, re-patterned, pad stitched again, and sewn back on. With one weekend remaining and still a pair of pants to pattern and make for another costume, this is going to be a real challenge. There's at least 9 hours of hand stitching in there. I'll hopefully have time to take some more in progress shots and I'll post them when I can.
 
I went ahead and finished sewing up the shell of the coat yesterday, it's pretty much just a mock up now. Looking at it on the form is really helpful, but there are still some huge issues I can't figure out. Go figure, a bunch of the identifiable problems were caused by my original edits to the pattern. I'm working on ways to fix them now. The collar also needs to be spread a lot, and it looks like I have to completely re-draft the lapels. I've figured out how much of the front panels needs to be removed to get the correct size opening in the front, but haven't figured out yet how to make an off-center center-front seam. Totally baffled there.

Also, I found a better fabric match in LA a couple weeks ago.
 
The Baker coat has a vertical seam that runs up the center front from the waist to the collar notch. With the coat opened up though, the center front is the edge of the panel.
 
Didn't get a chance to post a picture before, but here's the mock up in it's current state.



First step: fix the front dart that's causing that bend at the side. Then I'll re-draft the lapels, slash the collar and pattern it, attach a sleeve, and check the fit. That should solve most of the problems. Then I'll do another faster mock-up just to make sure it all works.
 
First of all, this is a mockup, not a final frock coat. Obviously I wouldn't sew it in this order if I planned to put a lining in it.

Second, your comments aren't welcome here, Steve if you're going to be sarcastic and not helpful.
 
I'm enjoying your progress very much and look forward to seeing more. From the pictures you've posted, I think you will make a very good 4th Doctor.
 
Thanks, both of you. I attached the left sleeve last night, but didn't roll out the pattern when I did it. All I had to go off of was the "low point" marking on the sleeve, which was still slightly visible in chalk, but nothing to match it to. The resulting sleeve isn't gathered enough and due to the stretching required to make it fit and it's maybe being slightly crooked it has some weird issues, but I'm pretty happy considering I winged it.



I still plan to pin a sleeve head in there to see if I need to add more fabric to the cap to make it poof up enough. That will also tell me if my sleeve length is correct. Apart from that, I'm very happy with how it's turning out. I need to mess with the collar and spread it out a bit, but I don't think that will be difficult.
 
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