Weekend weekend I'm at my wit's end
Jul. 23rd, 2021 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
totchipanda(again with the song lyrics lol)
Not much, if any, sewing will be happening this weekend. As long as the air quality index is good, I will be heading down to Calgary tomorrow, just for the day. I thought I might make a new cap to wear for a costume picnic, but by the time I left work yesterday I had completely forgotten, so that didn't happen. Sunday, my roommate and I are planning to build and put up the bookshelves I bought over a year ago so I can FINALLY get my books inside. Then it will just be a matter of getting the rest of the stuff out of the garage so I can actually USE IT to park my car!
In doing research for The BB Suit (heehee I decided to abbreviate it just now, I like it bc it def stands for Bastard of the Barrel, but the author said I didn't need to go full Bernadette Banner, whom we usually refer to as BB... IT'S FUNNY OK) I was making myself rather aggravated bc I wasn't finding any drafts with the dart that Freddy's coat DEFINITELY has in the show. Look here, self, Freddy's coat is almost certainly modern and tailored. I am not creating a show cosplay. I am creating a historically accurate suit for cosplay purposes.
Freddy is also ridiculously tall compared to my short self, and a vastly different body type. My suit will almost certainly have darts simply because I have boobs.
So yesterday, I was looking at a tailoring manual on archive.org, and it is a damn goldmine. I had saved it for the section on tailored skirts (and the hilarity of the image showing a fashion drawing of a woman in a "circular" skirt, which is not a true circle, but the drawing is... a straight skirt. Every single one of my "circular" drafts has come out the same as the drawing showing the layout, and they do not hang like that) but in going back through it, there's a complete section on how to tailor a coat. Y'ALL. I nearly shrieked with joy. There's so much structure that goes into a tailored coat but I didn't have a good grasp on WHAT kind of structuring.
I also nearly shrieked with despair, bc it's gonna take me approximately forever to actually make this coat. Alas.
I will DEFINITELY be making a test coat first. I don't have a TON of the striped wool, so that will be saved until I am more confident in the steps and skills required. A part of me wants to buy some poly suiting for it, or maybe cotton, but honestly I almost certainly have something in the stash that will be good enough. I thought of this rainbow striped something (not sure what type it is) that I have a good quantity of. I'm not sure what else I have off the top of my head, but I will not be finding out until next week some time. I WOULD like a fabric that I would actually wear, but budget. Anyway.
The book goes on to describe a canvas interfacing (linen canvas recommended) for the fronts, sleeve hems, armholes and back of the neck, then a hair interfacing for the front chest only, then padding for the armhole and chest, plus how to make the padding (cut out sateen, then at least 5 layers of "sheet padding" in progressively smaller increments, pad stitch together). I started to get lost when it started in on construction for the first fitting (so much hand stitching!) but it was also the end of the day.
It also had info on men's shirts and the different types. I'm diving back in today with hopes of making more sense of all of this. I particularly need to wrap my brain around pants, of which the closures differ between mens and ladies. Ladies has a side opening, mens is front. I am not here for your side opening pants, people.
And then a vest. And some detachable collars and cuffs. And some other sexy neck action.
Not much, if any, sewing will be happening this weekend. As long as the air quality index is good, I will be heading down to Calgary tomorrow, just for the day. I thought I might make a new cap to wear for a costume picnic, but by the time I left work yesterday I had completely forgotten, so that didn't happen. Sunday, my roommate and I are planning to build and put up the bookshelves I bought over a year ago so I can FINALLY get my books inside. Then it will just be a matter of getting the rest of the stuff out of the garage so I can actually USE IT to park my car!
In doing research for The BB Suit (heehee I decided to abbreviate it just now, I like it bc it def stands for Bastard of the Barrel, but the author said I didn't need to go full Bernadette Banner, whom we usually refer to as BB... IT'S FUNNY OK) I was making myself rather aggravated bc I wasn't finding any drafts with the dart that Freddy's coat DEFINITELY has in the show. Look here, self, Freddy's coat is almost certainly modern and tailored. I am not creating a show cosplay. I am creating a historically accurate suit for cosplay purposes.
Freddy is also ridiculously tall compared to my short self, and a vastly different body type. My suit will almost certainly have darts simply because I have boobs.
So yesterday, I was looking at a tailoring manual on archive.org, and it is a damn goldmine. I had saved it for the section on tailored skirts (and the hilarity of the image showing a fashion drawing of a woman in a "circular" skirt, which is not a true circle, but the drawing is... a straight skirt. Every single one of my "circular" drafts has come out the same as the drawing showing the layout, and they do not hang like that) but in going back through it, there's a complete section on how to tailor a coat. Y'ALL. I nearly shrieked with joy. There's so much structure that goes into a tailored coat but I didn't have a good grasp on WHAT kind of structuring.
I also nearly shrieked with despair, bc it's gonna take me approximately forever to actually make this coat. Alas.
I will DEFINITELY be making a test coat first. I don't have a TON of the striped wool, so that will be saved until I am more confident in the steps and skills required. A part of me wants to buy some poly suiting for it, or maybe cotton, but honestly I almost certainly have something in the stash that will be good enough. I thought of this rainbow striped something (not sure what type it is) that I have a good quantity of. I'm not sure what else I have off the top of my head, but I will not be finding out until next week some time. I WOULD like a fabric that I would actually wear, but budget. Anyway.
The book goes on to describe a canvas interfacing (linen canvas recommended) for the fronts, sleeve hems, armholes and back of the neck, then a hair interfacing for the front chest only, then padding for the armhole and chest, plus how to make the padding (cut out sateen, then at least 5 layers of "sheet padding" in progressively smaller increments, pad stitch together). I started to get lost when it started in on construction for the first fitting (so much hand stitching!) but it was also the end of the day.
It also had info on men's shirts and the different types. I'm diving back in today with hopes of making more sense of all of this. I particularly need to wrap my brain around pants, of which the closures differ between mens and ladies. Ladies has a side opening, mens is front. I am not here for your side opening pants, people.
And then a vest. And some detachable collars and cuffs. And some other sexy neck action.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-23 06:58 pm (UTC)Tailoring is SO involved! It's what makes it cool, but also a ton of work.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-23 07:54 pm (UTC)https://archive.org/details/pickentailoredbuttonholes1923/page/n83/mode/2up
On the plus side, once you've done all that work, you really shouldn't need to have to do it again too often! (as a self-making seamstress that is; one of the books had several pages about running a tailoring shop where a small team of 11 could make 15 suits per week)
no subject
Date: 2021-07-24 06:36 pm (UTC)So true!
no subject
Date: 2021-07-26 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-24 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-26 07:26 pm (UTC)