Making tatter jackets

[watervole]

 Fabric spread all over the table and floor.

I'm busy cutting up long strips of various shades of purple and sewing them onto old shirts. 

Interesting how times change.

When I started making morris tatter jackets over a decade ago, my only thought was to get them looking as good as possible and chose a carefully colour balanced set of fabrics, so that the whole team have matching jackets.

If I were starting again, I would now be thinking of how to make the best use of recycled fabrics and probably have used a different base colour for each team member to make that easier.

Things come full circle.

The original tatter jackets worn over a hundred years ago were made of old shirts with a few colourful rags sewn on to brighten them up.  They were the poor man's morris costume.

Modern tatter jackets have layer upon layer, rather like feathers overlapping on a bird's wing.

Environment again - as the summers get hotter, we're finding the multiple layers are very hot to wear. We've already changed our kit regulations to allow a t-shirt underneath, rather than a long-sleeved shirt.

Here's what our modern jackets look like:

 

 

 

 

Comments

[igenlode]

A bit like patchwork quilts? Originally the idea was just to create bed covers out of scraps from worn-out clothing, then people started positioning the random bits to produce an attractive balance of colour, then they started buying and cutting up brand-new fabric in the desired colour shades in order to create their designs...

[watervole]

Very good comparison!

I make tatter jackets, my sister makes quilts.

BTW, don't know if you're interested in historical quilt-making, but she's done quite a bit of research and has a web page about them.

[katherine]

That is a neat circle!

[replyhazy]

those are spectacular!

[watervole]

Thanks! Many hours of work go into each of them.
There's a lot of tricks that we've developed over the years to make them look even better when dancing. For instance, the bottom row of tail tatters are fake leather - the weight makes them swing out on turns. A couple of sequins on the bottom of the longest tails adds to the effect.

Small tatters folded over the neck hide the cut where the collar was removed, etc.