Shirt...finished!

...and so I have finally reached my last garment for the National Theatre's Hire Department, and once again I found myself with a bit more of a challenge than I had been given with the waistcoat and certainly the chemise.

I originally started with a quick tutorial with Dexter to outline the basic process for making the shirt: First the front opening would need to be constructed, then the back would be gathered and applied to the yolke to then be attacked on to the front. The sleeves and cuffs would then be constructed and sewn together before sewing the godae onto the main body of the shirt and attaching the sleeves. Finally the collar would be constructed and the shirt would be overlocked and hemmed. I was advised by a fellow student to take care when attaching the yolke as the stitch lines needed to be as straight as possible and it was very easy to mess this up.

The shirt was gathered at the back......and the cuffs.The collar had a pleated detail, and the front was buttoned up with four buttons.
The added godae allowed for extra arm movement during the 18th Century.

I had not anticipated the amount of work that would need to go into this garment - if I had forseen this I would have tried to allow myself more time to make this, like giving myself two weeks rather than one. This sense of short time is what has pressured me into leaving more mistakes than I would have liked - where faults occured I did my best to rectify them, but if they persisted I left them in the best state I could as I would rather hand in a more completed shirt than have a partially completed shirt with highly bruised fabric and the signs of last minute stress on it! Again, the best way to resolve this would be to plan my time much better and refer to my time plan constantly to review whether I am on track with my work or not.
Once I had completed my shirt I unfortunatly noticed that the front piece was uneven and would bulge out once the shirt was buttoned up. To rectify this I feared I would have to pull apart the entire shirt, so I decided to leave this error.

It comes as a relief to me that after our hand in we shall recieve further feedback from our tutors to rectify any issues with the garments so that they are at an acceptable standard to hire out.

(Luckily I had my housemate's Coffee Viking on hand to borrow to model the completed shirt...I feel that Apocalyptic Metal and pillaging and the 18th Century don't fit so well together).

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of my shirt, though I look forward to seeing which areas I need to improve in order to make it a good enough quality for the National Theatre Hire Department.

Chemise...done!

Due to lack of time (horray for Royal Weddings, bank holidays and what-not) I was required to change my work schedual slightly - trying to squeeze as much making as possible into the last week before handing in my pieces. Luckily I was able to borrow a small domestic sewing machine for the time that I was in London on work experience which saved me some time and took off the pressure of having to make two garments in a week. Obviouslt to overcome this I need to look back over my time plan at least once a week to ensure that I am on target with my work and not in danger of running out of time.

When working away from the studio I had a rough idea of what the garment should look like - pretty much all of the seams were french seams with only the godae straight stitched in and overlocked.The neckline seemed to be gathered then applied onto cotton tape with elastic. For my piece I just used elastic to create the same effect. A small zigzag stitch was used to gather the material edge to neatly finish off the raw edge of the material.

The only problems I encountered with this garment were with the material - it was so thin that it was impossible to mark with coloured chalk and using pins bruised the material too much. I overcame this by using white chalk to mark out the design lines and used as few pins as I could possibly manage. Due to the fineness of the material it had a tendancy to bunch up under the sewing machine, emphasising that it is always vital to test a scrap piece of material under the machine to test the stitch tension and to ensure that the material will be able to handle going through the machine.


The chemise took two days to make, which was surprising as I had expected it to take longer. As I did not have the sample to refer to when making the chemise it is not an exact replica of the original - the only difference is that the french seams are not as fine as the sample chemise, however these could easily be altered if necessary.

Waistcoat...completed!

So my waistcoat took me once again about 2 weeks to complete. Thanks to my realisation that I have less time that I thought I sis I am now slightly behind schedual...time to pick up the pace!
Constructing my waistcoat felt considerably smoother than the process for making the breeches had been as I had previously make a waistcoat at the beginning of the year in tailoring whereas I had never made a pair of breeches before. I used the notes that I had written for my tailored waistcoat as a rough guide for constructing my military one, for example using it as a reminder on how to put the lining together and apply the facing. As the military design was quite different from the tailored design I sometimes struggled to transfer the instructions across.

I once again used The National Theatre's example to ensure that the quality of my work was up to their standard and that my methods were similar to their own.





After carefully examining all of the details I started work on my own piece, constantly referring back to the sample.


The only major issue that I encountered was that once I had sewn the back pieces to the front pieces and bagged them out I had realised that the drawstring tabs were on the inside of the back piece rather than the front. It was easier and quicker to unpick these and transfer them on to the back of the waistcoat rather than unpicking the entire waistcoat to flip the back pieces round. In future I will need to carefully consider how the waistcoat will turn out in this situation before anything is sewn permanently.


Overall I am extremely satisfied with my waistcoat, I feel that the quality of my making is improving since the breeches I constructed as I am getting into a habit of caring for my fabric, avoiding handeling it too much and ensuring that my stitching is as neat and secure as possible.

Time is catching up!

It dawned on me this morning that it is quite unlikely that I will be able to finish all of my garments in time for my hand in. A bit of a downer really!
By Easter I had hoped to have my waistcoat and breeches completly finished and my material for my shirt and chemise cut ready for me to use after Easter. In the first week back I had planned to get as much of my shirt completed as possible, then over my week of work experience I would make my chemise in the mornings before heading off to the Queen's Theatre for 1. After my work experience that would leave me a week to tidy up any loose ends before handing in on the 16th.
I suspect that I am behind with my waistcoat due to a couple of studio days I took off for personal reasons, I would probably be more on target if I hadn't. I will no longer be able to work on my chemise over my week of work experience as the only way I can now to get to my accommodation is by train and I dare not risk taking my mum's aging sewing machine on a trip for a couple of hours!
I am awaiting a little piece of advice from my tutor before I start losing my head over this. My only worry is if I get penalised too much for not completing all of my pieces - I have alot to pick up from my last result from Candide.

Blog Tutorial and PoP!

...and so, I was given feedback on my bloggy blog!
Ideally I am supposed to post daily and to give a weekly reflection. I need to refer to my original time plan and learning agreement, focusing on what I have been learning through my sewing skills and any improvements I have made. I need to do much more research (and yes, reflect on it!). I need to be critical of my work or lack of, recognise these issues and address them.

Another fun addition to my mountain of work was the final decision on my Perceptions of Performance essay. I'll be writing about Alice in Wonderland, and how the story has been adapted to suit a variety of audiences. My initial idea came from the idea of the transition from book to screen to stage with the likes of Phantom of the Opera, but I think my enthusiasm for my last minute idea won my tutor over! One of my points will hopefully look at how the sinisterness of the original illustrations (Tenniel) ranges in its adaptations to a more child-friendly look (Disney) back to a more modern look, but still slightly unnerving (American Mgee). I shall be diving into the world of silent movies, ballet and possibly even porn!
Down the rabbit hole I go...

Breeches...done!

Once again this post comes slightly late, but besides any small tweaks that need to be made to them my breeches are complete! They were an interesting item to begin making as I had never made a pair of breeches before. In order to make the breeches as professional and neat as possible I used the National Theatre's example pair as a reference. The opening for the breeches consisted of a button opening and a front flap to conceal the opening. A cash pocket was on the left side of the breeches and a small welt pocket on the right. Putting the breeches together was relativly straight forward. By avoiding putting any seams together the material was kept as clean and crisp as possible. So as not to spoil my fabric I created a sample for the welt pocket before applying it to my breeches, allowing me to refresh myself on the construction of a pocket and perfect my pocket making skills. This method prooved to be successful, giving me a happy looking pocket! The uprights for the completed pocket need to be straightened and sharpened slightly, which will be completed as part of my 'to tidy' list. The cash pocket seemed to be a simpler make so I went to apply this directly on to the breeches and after a considerable amount of fiddling it was finally completed. The pocket does not lay directly flat on the breeches, another fault that will be rectified at a later date.

Hopefully the breeches should be completly finished tomorrow, allowing an evaluation complete with pretty pictures! Huzzah!