Pattern-drafting is not my strong suit, but I don’t live near enough to, well, anyone it seems for me to easily beg/barter that service on a regular basis. Thus, I had to start on my own for to make this 16th-century doublet. *sigh.* I was inspired by what I could suss out of the seam
I’m half an hour into an one-hour dress for Gatsby. By the way, the one-hour dress pattern takes me about two days to make, though I did just finish all the “tricky” patterning, and I even bumped it up a notch by trying the two-piece pattern this time. It’s from a 1925 pattern booklet that
I’m not making any promises, but I did start something today. I mocked up a polonaise bodice — based on ye olde Butterick not-very-accurate-but-darnit-it-fits-me bodice I used for Cosi Fan Tutte and the blue caraco. Modified the front for no stomacher (for the caraco, it was a zone, so I now I have another variation).
It’s only a paper stomacher… The easiest thing to pattern. Just stick some paper under the francaise and draw a shape. Smooth out the lines. *Ta da* It’s a stomacher. For the actual item, I used an inner layer of white mid-weight canvas-y stuff, covered w/the pink silk on both sides and the sari fabric
Thanks to help from this Threads article (which is actually the cheatsheet for a full article that’s more about theory), I successfully graded a pattern that I’d scaled up from Hunnisett. I’m pretty decent at sleeves, but I usually guess and have to make three muslins to get the right fit. The Threads article showed
Seriously, why do you costumer folk love her? Nice books, but she made diagrams of clothing worn by mutant pygmies. Im-freakin’-possible to scale up from for real people, unless you enjoy frustration or are some kind of architectural genius. I was seduced into thinking I might use those books for genuine costuming applications (as opposed
The lady artisan’s apron is harder to make than one might think. At least if you’re me. Because (a) I’m slow in general and (b) it involves pattern drafting, which is not a fine skill o’ mine. The skirt went together easy-peasy. Skirts usually do. But I tried three different bodice ideas before I got
I’ve never scaled up a pattern from a book. This year, I made a point of acquiring all the biggies of the historical costuming library like Janet Arnold and Jean Hunnisett. They’re chock filled with patterns on teeny grids that you’re supposedly able to use. But how? Nobody would fill me in on that part.
Sewed the lining of Aouda’s bodice last night (tried it on the dressform, fit weird, need to try it on me). Massive mad props to Kendra, who draped a pattern on me last weekend!!! I gave up on the Simplicity one and just went to the expert. The muslin looked awesome. Just doing a double-check
I used Simplicity 9891 for the body of the dress and McCall’s 3663 for the sleeves. Luckily, I discovered that I had enough black velvet in my fabric stash already. Also had enough black lining in my stash. Only fabric I needed to buy was the silky dark red fabric for the sash and the