Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #20: Outerwear

I spent last night frantically handsewing soutache on the shoulder cape to meet the challenge deadline.  And then I tried it on and....  well, hated it. :(  Having to hem it up 4" to bring it all even to the side seams brought it up to just above my elbow and it just felt like a silly length to me.

I was frustrated beyond belief to get the #$%^ing thing finished and then end up hanging it in the closet and never wearing it because I didn't like how it turned out.  But Jay suggested that I could do something Inverness style so that it became the top of something longer.  The more I think about that, the more the idea grows on me.  Silkbaron.com has some 60" dupioni in a luscious colour called black cherry that I may need to get a swatch of.  Or perhaps a forest green.  Matching blacks would be crazy making but a contrasting colour (especially with continuing the black soutache trim) might be striking. Note to self:  do some research to see if mixing colours like that was ever done.

Lessons learned:
1) my pattern drafting is rustier than I thought.
2) handsewing takes longer than I expect (and should be done in daylight if at all possible)
3) Cheap silk dupioni looks striped.  Don't buy cheap dupioni.

 It's difficult to see the row of soutache edging the front and bottom in this picture.  My original thought was to add a second row but I ran out of time for challenge #20 and I'm not sure I like the garment enough to put the additional hand sewing time in unless I follow through on the Inverness thought.

As I posted previously, I tried to recreate the multiple tucks on the collar of an Emile Pingat cape, but I think the slubbing of the dupioni worked against me because the effect is far more subtle than I was hoping for.  To me, the tucks look too much like the slubbing to be really noticeable.