Info on Mule Ear Pocket trousers construction

[reenactor1861]

Hi,
I am in the process of making a pair of Richmond Depot trousers from a Charlie Childs pattern. I was wondering when attaching the fronts and backs at the side seams, do you stitch all the way up or just to the pockets?

[Silas]

Re: Info on Mule Ear Pocket trousers construction

Have you completed the pockets and sewn them to the pant fronts? That job needs to be completed before sewing the fronts to the backs.

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Info on Mule Ear Pocket trousers construction

http://www.4thvirginia.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=73

Let's see if this old link still works.

[rmilstead]

Re: Info on Mule Ear Pocket trousers construction

Typically the pocket facings on original Richmond Trousers were sewed to the pocket bag with a simple running ("over and under") stitch not a blanket stitch. Pictures of three examples are attached. All of these examples are of English cloth which holds a better raw edge than wool on cotton fabrics but this is likely the way they were all done. Perhaps originals originally frayed along the edge, I don't know.

The pictures are of the Tolson Trousers (MdHS), the Wilson Trousers (Smithsonian), and two shots of the Redwood Trousers (MOC). The stitching on the Redwood example is faint and hard to see in the pictures but is executed in the same way as the others.

Just my $0.02

Dick Milstead
Hardaway's Alabama Battery
The Company of Military Historians