Spats / Gaiters
At first I though these would be easy enough to find and soon came across "Mosquito Spats" (do a Google image search and you'll find a load).
I bought a pair cheap of eBay but they are far too small ('cos they're 1945 ATS women's spats - see pic. below)
Comparing my too-small spats and the pictures of the doctor's, I reckon they are actually suede lether or possibly moleskin and not just dark-green-and-dirty canvas ones.
There's no hint of the canvas weave and the stitching is very different (the canvas ones are made double-skinned and sewn together).
So... I have some old green moleskin trousers that I'll chop up for material once I've figured out a pattern that fits me.
The 'Mosquito Spats'
and a test spat made from scrap denim
This shows the material I used
and the MkII test made with denim
The pattern was drawn from the test piece on greaseproof paper.
Red=stitching lines. Rightmost pattern is cut out.
Spats cut out of moleskin material
ready for stitching
All stitched and buttons sewn on
Colouring a test piece with Wood Dye
After loads of tests with dye, boot polish, acrylic paint, fabric paint, furniture wax and brown crayon -
I eventually settled on an old tin of Wood Dye (Colron 'Georginan Medium Oak') which I applied with bit of cloth
Comparison of the finished(?) result alongside the originals.
I still think they're a bit too green and need 'wearing-in' some more.
The buttons look too big, but I think this is a consequence of me having short legs - so my spats are probably
quite a bit smaller than the Doctor's !
