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.

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!

New Term - Candide!

Here's the start of a new term and a new project - Candide! It's wonderful to get back into the realm of making, especially since I got round to doing NONE of my 'to do' list! Shame on me.
Unfortunatly it was a bit of a scramble to get our designs. Luckily it was about a half-and-half split on which gender we got as the majority wanted to do the opposite to what they did last year, but due to my politeness and inability to speak up I got stuck with the plainest and simplest design - Cunégonde as an old woman.
While it's all very easy to be immature and sulk about it, I've kicked myself and gotten myself to man up - with a simple design like this I will at least make the entire outfit rather than hiring pieces out, and I will have to force myself to perfect the costume and any small details on it.

Old Cunégonde by Johanna Muessig

Considering she's an old woman this will hopefully allow lots of breaking down, considering she becomes a slave later in the story - hopefully this will give a bit more practicality to a character who just seems a bit rich and a tad spoilt.
Well, good luck to me!