Autumn Zebra

This is part one of a two part post, but unlike other series of posts, this one might actually get past the first one, because the item in question is nearly finished, and I like it even if everyone else will probably think it's ridiculous. Currently, I am using the word "smock" to designate any garments of a particular basic type. One of the very common forms that clothing has taken, through time and in various parts of the world, is this "smock". For the basic pattern, the front and back are made of rectangles (with a shoulder seam or one continuous piece of fabric), obviously with some kind of hole for the head, triangular pieces are added at the sides to widen it, and rectangular pieces for sleeves. Underarm gussets may or may not be added, and additional triangles might be added to the centre front and centre back to widen it further. Variations can be made by having tapered sleeves, or sleeves that start rectangle and change to tapering around the elbow. T...

Posted on my Live Journal for the same reason as last time.... entry here .

I posted this on Live Journal because I also posted it on the corset makers community over there. Link to the Live Journal post. I've since discovered it's fairly wrong, but I think it will still work well enough so I'll make them up anyway (I am about half-way through actually). It won't be too much of an investment of time etc if it doesn't work out that well, as it is machine sewn and doesn't use special materials.

I've been too tired and busy to update my blog once a day! I'm currently trying to draft a sleeve for an Edwardian top; the sleeve will have a close-fitting undersleeve and then a top sleeve with a poufy top and close fitting below the elbow. Unfortunately the pattern instructions for a close-fitting sleeve I have ends up creating a sleeve that is far too tight at the top. I think I might actually have to make a sleeve that is BIGGER at the top than a NORMAL sleeve pattern to make a close-fitting one for me! My upper arm is too big. Here is my pattern drafting table, a hive of activity. Wine is important. Two pattern drafting books, 3 rulers and 2 triangles (not all visible), a giant roll of paper, tape measure, smaller paper, pencil case with pencils and pens, more books and papers with instructions and notes, thick cardboard to sort of "extend"the table. Out of view - calculator, folder of drafted patterns, box of small paper, paper scissors, cellotape, masking tape...

Is it part 1? Or part 2? Or 3? I can't remember if I wrote about it before. In any case, I was going to take pictures of the draping of the jacket. But, I only ended up taking two pictures, one of the back and one of the front. Draping is where you get a piece of material, and lay it over the dress dummy or whatever, and then make the pattern by drawing lines on it and cutting it where you need to to get the shape you want. Here are my pictures. I did the back first, first the centre back piece, then the one to the side of it, then the one to the side of that. With each piece, I pinned the material on and drew lines where I wanted it to stop, or where it connected to another piece, or where it would need to be cut in order to make it lie flat. The front piece came after, but I did actually then change it completely later. The black lines are the seam allowance lines, waist line, darts, and where to cut for the lower edge, the cut out front, etc. The problem is that although it may ...

A friend of mine was crazy enough to decide that I should make her her formal dress. ;) It used this Butterick pattern . In many ways it was a pain - it uses annoying slippery satin material (crepe-back satin), the instructions do not necessarily tell you the best way to do it (I followed them because I thought they might be right, but I had to make some adjustments afterwards), I used plastic boning stuff as recommened. I thought the plastic boning - although not suitable for corsets as everyone knows - might be ok for the purpose for which it is intended and recommended - close-fitting strapless tops. It is not, it is pretty terrible. I wouldn't recommend it. Anyway, in the end she liked it, and it was not too awful, but there are many things that I wish were different or better, if only I had known. At some point I may have pictures of her in it, but for now I have pictures on the mannequin. Not all were taken when it was actually finished and aren't in order in that respec...

What is the first thing that comes into your head when someone says that there is the possibility to go over to someone's house and watch a movie you've seen several times and own yourself? Why, we should go I'll make a costume, of course! I looked though our Princess Bride DVD for everything that she wears in it and drew some little pictures too. Although there was one outfit that I would rather have made, I really had very limited choice because I don't keep large pieces of material on hand. I have a lot of material, but of each individual fabric I only have a small quantity. Except for a small number of pieces bought for a specific purpose, and a couple that are "utility" pieces - frequently useful and not needing to be any specific colour. Although I do need more white linen to keep on hand - frequently useful for folk costume shirts and any historical underwear that might be visible at all, or simply to be more correct. Anyway, I had to choose a dress not...

I'm not sure what to write actually, and didn't take many pictures. I am making a post about how to make an underbust pattern, but I thought I should finish mine first and see if I am really qualified to say such things. I made my first pattern, based on instructions from a site I can no longer find, from memory, because it is really a very simple concept, but I made a major idiotic mistake, probably because I was very hungry and my thinking was very messed up. I did it while nothing was happening in pattern-making class. So, when I realised my idiocy the next day, I made another, which went a lot better and made a lot more sense. Which I will explain later when mine is all finished and good (hopefully). There are three main, simple categories of underbust corset in terms of shape of the top and bottom edges. flat or slightly curved edges curved between bust pointy! They're crappy little drawings, I know. So anyway, the point is I decided to go for number two, forgetting th...

I didn't understand some of the instructions for my little hat, something about following the general instructions which said, abbreviated, to cut the pattern tissues for remnants and then pin them to the corresponding fabric remnant. And then later it talked about using pattern pieces it hadn't told me I needed in the list it gives you at the start, but which I think related to the remnant bit. So I don't get that bit. and instead of labeling the "remnant" pattern pieces normally, they draw the grainline outside the pattern piece beside it, for instance. Why do that? That's weird. So I'm ignoring that bit and making it up, as is generally necessary with patterns. Still, here is the outer layer, the fashion fabric (the pattern also refers to the outer layer, or fashion fabric, as merely "the fabric". What about the lining, is that not also fabric? No, wait, that is "remnant", I think. Whatever. I think they need to spend a little longer...

I think the last time I posted about this was quite a while ago, but I thought I should do some more actual sewing posts. Pattern Last time I talked about the pattern, but I thought I would add a bit more. Here is the pattern: Here is a bit of a glossary: LEWY - left PRAWY - right PRZÓD - front TYŁ - back KOŁNIERZ - collar RĘKAW - sleeve KIESZEŃ - pocket Isn't Polish beautiful? Unless the person you want to make this pattern for is pretty much the correct proportions, if not the correct size, I think it would be easier to simply make a pattern to their measurements in this shape rather than copying and then modifying the pattern. Unless you have made quite a few men's clothes before, because it is a pain. Front Closure The Polish jackets overlap right-over-left, unlike men's jackets from Western Europe (although in Poland now they will wear it Western style, but I mean at the time, they did it Eastern style). Sleeves and Cuffs The sleeve seems to have t...

A post about actually making things!! My inspiration for making this hat came from this one, although whence it came I am no longer sure. And the reason for looking at this hat in the first place was due to the custom of oczepiny in Polish weddings where the bride swaps here wreath of flowers or whatever for the hat. Unfortunately no one seems to provide pictures of such a hat. (I don't think we'll be doing it anyway actually.) I made up a simple pattern consisting of a rectangle with two curved corners, and a curved piece somewhat like the shape of a back of a head. I measured my head a bit first to work out the approximate sizes. Then I made it up a couple of times in old sheet material, changing the curve a little bit and so on to try and get a good fitting hat. Unfortunately, this was really hard. This was the original shape of the back piece. I'm not sure if changing the curve really made much difference to the problems I had, but it meant the length of the curve was ...

In the weekend before Waitangi Day, I spent a lot of time trying to get the pattern right for a Polish jacket I am making for G, based on those worn in the 17th Century, I think. It is a zupan. Or a kontusz. It is hard to decide as it has elements of both, so it kind of depends on when the pattern was from. But I say it is a zupan - an under jacket rather than an over one, because the sleeves are closed and the neckline high. But many jackets of that type are also labeled kontusz, so who really knows. I had already made the pattern and made and modified the mock-up a couple of times, and I did several more mock-ups and alterations and eventually I think it is mostly right!! If I had started off with the pattern as it is now I would probably have tried to make it better, but I think it is good enough and both of us are sick of it. The problems came that I had to scale up a pattern from a picture on the computer which was not the right size and proportions for Gary anyway. This picture: ...

On Tuesday evening we had the first class of the Patternmaking course. In this class we drafted a basic skirt block for ourselves. This looks something like this (but the paper would be lying flat. I also drew on the lines in on the computer because the pencil didn't show up): Then we traced around it. We are going to convert it into an A-line skirt block next week. I have to admit that it was rather slow, and not just because I have done pretty much exactly the same thing before. It's just not really that difficult to draw some lines of a certain length at right-angles to other lines, with detailed instructions, after having seen the instructions gone through in each detail. But it was still fun and I was pretty excited. I could have drafted the A-Line block too if I'd had another 5 minutes, but she decided to end the class 20 minutes early to not over-tax anyone. About half the class took twice as long as the other half, and I suppose these were the ones that might be ove...

For my sister for Christmas we were going to get her some cool PJ's and a robe and slippers (actually, 2 of the 3, but we were undecided which) from Ezibuy, a mail-order catalogue, and they were pretty cool, but then we got her something else and I made her a new wallet. I was going to get a picture of the wallet but I forgot again until I had already wrapped it up. It looked cool and only took about 3-4 hours to make including making some bias binding and hand-sewing it on. I was actually a bit disappointed it took so little time, so we bought her something else too. It wasn't as much of a labour of love as I was imagining :) Anyway, I think the pyjama idea stuck in my head somewhat because then we saw some lounge pants in a shop, like pyjama pants for lounging around in, and they came in their own matching bag. And so I decided I should make some. Undoubtedly it would have been easier and maybe even cheaper to buy them, but whatever. We went shopping to get some material, and...

I can't believe it - I have not even told you about my existing purchases and plans when I have again, just today at lunchtime, gone out and instantiated yet another plan that had been sitting in the back of my mind for the last few months, uninitiated because then it would become something that sat in my room forever. Probably on the floor. But hopefully I will compile some information on that soon. I really need to make my website you know. Here's the gist of the website: The site will be useful over the blog in that I will be able to keep all information about a particular item of clothing together, even though I may write about it, from concept to finished photos, over months, or, in some cases, even years (!). Thus, I could post a picture of the material, then some ideas, then the development all over time and as it grew people would be able to read through the progress. Currently on the blog, I am wanting to instead wait until everything is fully underway and completable ...