shebit, posts by tag: clothes - LiveJournal

The sewing project continues.

I've made the main body of the jacket and cut the lining. I've also cut the panels for the skirt, and bought a zip, so I reckon if I knuckle down and chain myself to the sewing machine I might get the entire skirt made tonight.

Every person I've told that I'm making a suit has looked at me like I'm slightly mad. This may well be true, but it's going ok so far.

So last night I started on the mockup of the jacket I'm making. I cut my pattern, tacked it all together and tried it on. It worked, but needed adjustments (shortening in the shoulders and across the back). I took it off, pinned the adjustments by pure judgement... and somehow got them dead on.

So, I've now copied the adjusted fabric pieces back onto paper and have my working pattern!

What I can't decide is what style skirt would go best with it (it's meant to be a suit, see).

The lazy part of me likes the thought that a wraparound wouldn't require a zip, and that if the flap flips up it'll reveal the funky lining (my cloth is a tweed with a faint teal stripe through it, so I'm lining the suit in teal satin, which will show on the collar facings of the jacket.

But the jacket will have a pleat at the back, so I'm tempted to echo that with a pleat in the back of the skirt (would that be OTT?)

Or I could just go for a simple (or panelled) A-line.

I can't decide!

For reference, the jacket is based on a Spencer jacket, but I'm making it fall to below the waist by adding a drape hanging from the empire line, with a box pleat in the back and the hem coming down in a curve (like a morning suit jacket).

So, clothes and costume people, what style skirt would best suit my... suit?

*does the dance of having Hamlet tickets*

I'm off to see the Tennant/Stewart Hamlet in London in December!

Did I really just type Tennant/Stewart? Oh God, my eyes. I can't unsee it!

Slash is what happens when the Doctor and Jean-Luc love each other very much...

Yay Hamlet!


In less bouncy news, I ordered a really nice dress online and was then told it was out of stock. Poop. I want my half price in the sale dress, dammit! I could order it a size smaller, but does anyone seriously believe I could fit into a 14? Nope, didn't think so.

They do have another nice dress, but it's not black, not jersey cotton and, most importantly, twice the price.

Ooh, that dress I fell in love with the other day is on Oli. Behold how fab it is!

I fell for it in burgundy, but the turquoise photo shows the style better.

WANT!

It's a bloody sight pricier on Oli, though - in the shop it was only £45, but Oli want £65.

I just fell in love with a dress.

I decided that I was allowed to try on a pretty dress that I don't need on my birthday, and it was utterly gorgeous, but sadly a little too small.

It was so perfect though that I might try to draw what I can remember of it and try to get one of you seamstresses out there to make a pattern for me (or even make the thing, as my sewing is slightly iffy). I would of course pay for this service.

The dress is rather 1950s, in dark red taffetta (I adore red taffetta) with white embroidered polka dots. It's a wraparound but with a very flared a-line skirt with a few sewn down pleats on the bum and under the two front patch pockets. Oh, and it has a stand up half collar and slightly puffed short sleaves (with a button).

I'm sure my description doesn't do it justice, but it was wonderfully flattering on my three-hourglass figure - showing off my bust and relatively small waist and hiding my hips and bum under the flare of the skirt.

Want.

Cannot has.

Woe.

*goes to try to draw it from memory*

Damnit, despite my best efforts, and despite thinking the character a waste of space for much of the first series, Ianto Jones is seriously growing on me. He gets the cute one liners, and he wears lovely black pinstripe three piece suits (with vents!) with red shirts. Now that I've retconned myself into believing that Jack used Retcon to erase Ianto's memories of a certain event, I find Ianto's crush on Jack rather endearing.

Would that count as date rape? He used a drug on Ianto which got him into his pants, just by making Ianto forget that he hated him. Would that make Jack not much better than that bottom-feeder Owen?

Jack is dashing, though.

In case anyone wanted to see, this is my little paper Spencer jacket, from the front and back. For scale, the jacket is being modelled by a rubber thimble - it's about 11cm cuff to cuff.

Just to be clear:

SheBit + Bright Ideas^tm = madness

My latest Bright Idea? I'm going to try to make a Spencer jacket. And, just to add to the madness, I'm not buying a pattern, I'm just replicating one I saw online - how hard can it be to enlarge a drawn pattern about forty times?

Boredom at work this morning meant that a short time was spent building a paper model of the jacket, to check that the pattern works. The model's actually rather cute - suitable for a six inch Bennett sister who's really into natural fibres. And by natural fibres I mean printer paper.

So, I'm going to have a go at drawing up the pattern full size to see how much cloth it'll need, then next week hopefully I'll get enough calico from the shop around the corner to build a toile, with which to tweak the pattern and get the fit just right.

This page gives a detailed, illustrated step by step on putting the jacket together, including a bit on adding a skirt to turn it into a longer, drapey jacket. If the first one works out I can see myself making a few with a variety of lengths, colars, sleeves and details.

So, seamstresses out there, how mad is this Bright Idea of mine?

Also, if the first works, if I could find frogging braid and dome buttons I would so make a Regency military detailed one - because apparently the design was originally for men (including the Earl of Spencer, who gave the style his name), so military styled early examples were quite common. And how good would a riffle green, black braided, silver buttoned Spencer jacket look?

These designs are teh sex. Seriously.

My God, the coats.

I want this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this corset and... oh, who am I kidding: I want them all.

Pure.Sex

Forealz

See, this is exactly why SheBits shouldn't be allowed out at lunchtime. It's a known fact that SheBits are attracted to big red sale signs, and will be seduced into spending their money.

Ho-hum.

On the bright side, I bought a pair of shoes which I'd been rather taken with when I first saw them a couple of months ago, but couldn't justify the £35 price tag. The £19.99 sale price was much easier to stomach, and they are very pretty - burgundy leather and suede pumps with a peeptoe and mary-jane strap. Very cute, and practical. Last summer I kept buying silly, impractical heels; this summer I seem to be buying cute but practical footwear - this is an improvement, no?

The other item I'd had my eye on this summer was a lovely cardie by Uttam, but it was £35 and the print, while pretty, was also rather garish and clashy - more moose_biscuit than SheBit. So at lunchtime I encountered a slightly more sedate (ie black) cardie with extra long, slim sleeves with buttons almost to the elbow. Good sleeves. And, bonus, only twelve squid.

So, I had been looking at £70 for a pair of shoes and a cardie, and ended up with the same shoes and a probably more useful cardie for the bargain price of £31.99.

We'll shy away from the 'spending money I don't have' element and focus on the bargain finding, shall we?

God, I'm so Jewish.

Can any of the seamstresses out there give me an idea of how much fabric I'd need for a knee-length A-line or wraparound skirt, bearing in mind that I'm not particularly stick-like (where stick-like < size 18). Is it largely a matter of seeing if the fabric width is more than enough to go around me, and if it is then assuming a metre will give me pleanty of room to maneouvre on the length?

I've decided that for this summer I'm going to acquire/make a couple of skirt patterns and make my own skirts. I've even found some gorgeous cotton for the first, which is only about £7/m.