Monday 14 February 2011

Starting the Footman

I started work on the footman’s jacket today, I was going to finish the ladies outfit in its entirety first, but I still haven’t settled on a fabric for it, so i thought I would make a start on this. It’s quite daunting, I’ve never worked on male clothing before (other than tunics). I found a full size version of the pattern above, but my model is a little on the small side, and the pattern was for a person over 6 foot. So I thought I would do better to work straight from the book. I had to completely ignore the scaling it gave, it would again have been way too big.

The process involved lots of grid drawing and took a couple of hours. I have decided a pattern master is an absolutely amazing piece of kit that I definitely need to own.

I very carefully made sure all the different bits matched the measurements, checked, and rechecked, then cut and stitched. Took time over tracing it out and ironing the side pleats.

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After all that (well, an hour or so) I slipped it on…

How on earth did I not spot it before? The back was about 10cm too narrow! I knew I was having a particularly scatter-brained day, but I remember looking a the back pattern piece and thinking it looked narrow. How come I didn’t measure it? I astound myself sometimes, never mind though, this is what toiles are for.

3 comments:

  1. Thats awesome that you can scale up a pattern. I have a degree in fashion design so I usually draft my patterns from basic blocks I've created. I'm daunted by scaling up patterns from a book and have no clue as to what the first step would be! It looks like it would be faster.

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  2. It did take a bit of time. I did it with grids, but I'm sure it would have been much faster just to use a photocopier, though it takes a few goes to get the sizing right. I think I will try that next time.

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  3. .....check twice, cut once perhaps?! <3 xx

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