Recycled Pirate

"Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late.

The cannons don't thunder.

There's nothing to plunder.

I'm an over 40 victim of fate." 

- Jimmy Buffett, "A Pirate Looks at 40"

While not quite an "over 40 victim of fate," I am a pirate.  And not just any old pirate.  Anne Bonny, Irish pirate queen.

'twas cold and rainy that day

Pull up a seat, grab a tankard of ale, and I'll spin you a yarn of how I came to be an award-winning pirate.

It started simply enough: I wanted an outfit.  Blouse, trousers, boots...and of course the hat.  Every pirate needs a good hat.

It's missing...something

So I scoured the local thrift store until I was able to assemble an outfit worthy of a pirate queen.  Added a bit of trim to the hat, sewed some buttons to the vest, got some good sashes (one to tie down my blouse, the other to hold my tankard and pouch), made a scabbard and baldric for my sword, and things were coming along nicely.

Now we're getting somewhere!

But it was still missing a very important element.  A coat.  And that's where the adventure truly began!

I started with, believe it or not, the lining from an old coat.  It had no cuffs, it had no collar or lapels.  It was rather too long.  But I knew I could make it work.  With time and effort, I could turn it into a fabulous coat, worthy of any pirate queen!

Now, keep in mind, I don't truly know how to sew.  People who do know how to sew said "It can't be done."  But I wasn't daunted.  I had my heart set on making a pirate coat, and come hell or high water, I was going to make one!

The first thing was making the collar.  Fortunately, I had just the thing - the edge of a hood I'd removed from an old costume robe.  It had a thin layer of foam in it to keep its shape.  So I cut it up the back seam so it'd lay flatter, then pinned it to the liner to see how it would look.

Here's the liner with the "collar" pinned on

You can see the point of the hood hanging down in the middle

During my scavenging, I came across some brilliant red material, which I purchased for making the cuffs, lapels and collar.  I removed the hood edging, laid it out straight, measured it, made a mock-up from white cotton, checked my pattern, then cut a long red rectangle, sewing the ends closed to form a casing that I slipped the edging into, then sewed that onto the lining as the collar. 

The lapels were formed in a similar fashion - I used my white cotton to make a mock-up of an elongated isosceles triangle, determining how far down I wanted the lapels to go, how wide at the top and narrow at the bottom.  Again, I sewed the ends, then decided I should have a bit of stiffness to them so they'd lay flat of their own accord.  Fortunately I had on hand some tough foam sheeting, the kind they package pots and pans in, which I cut to fit inside the lapels, but not go all the way to the bottom.

One of the lapels, with the lining laid on top to show length

Sewing the lapels on was one of the trickier parts of assembling this coat.  As you can see from the pictures above, there was red piping running up the inside, which I wanted to keep.  After folding over and sewing the long edge of the lapel, I pinned it down so it was tight against that piping, and then sewed it on.

Collar and one lapel sewn on, with cuff mock-up

My coat was starting to take shape!  The cuffs were relatively easy (compared to the rest!) - I measured around the sleeves (after I shortened them), then cut out a rectangle from my trusty cotton, pinned it in place to make sure it did what I wanted, then made the actual cuffs.  They're French-style, so they fold back, and are held in place by four hand-sewn buttons, two on each side.

Ah, the buttons.  Yes.  Buttons...were just a bit of a headache.  There are seven on each lapel - five in loops and two at the bottom without loops.  The loops themselves were made from the tie I'd removed from the vest.  After those were sewn in place, the buttons were sewn in, by hand.  Then, to bring the whole thing together, I glued black and gold twisted braiding down the inner edge of the lapels, leaving the piping showing.

Three down, eleven to go...not counting the eight on the cuffs!

It was a challenge, but I'm very happy with how it turned out.  I learned a lot about sewing, and how to look at elements of a garment and replicate them.  I knew what I wanted and how I wanted things to look, it was just a matter of working out what shapes I needed and how to attach them to do what I wanted.

The end result is...pretty fabulous, if I do say so.

It's all about the details

When I set out to make this coat, my only intention was to make it, and possibly wear it to the Renaissance Fair in Bristol (if the weather wasn't 95 in the shade!).  But one night, while searching for Boadicea costumes, I came across a fantastic site called Take Back Halloween.  I thought that was a great idea - costumes for women that aren't all..."sexified," that a woman could feel proud and, most importantly, comfortable wearing in public.  I spent countless hours on the site, checking back periodically as new costumes were added, reading up on all the great women who were profiled.  And then I saw that they were holding a costume contest.  Well, you know me and my costumes - I had to enter!  There were many amazing costumes, from lots of very creative women; some didn't quite play by the rules, but they certainly put thought and effort into their costumes.

I have to admit, I'm still amazed I took second overall!  Guess all the hard work (and hours of listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks over and over again) paid off!