jacket pattern

I will start by giving you the information that I have to make a pattern for this client.

Firstly, he is of retirement age.

Height 4' 11",

neck 14 1/2"

chest 36 1/2"

waist 37 3/4"

hip 38 3/4"

XB 13 3/4"

nape to CF waist 22"

back length 15"

nape to wrist 30 1/2"

So, as you can see, he is not of average proportions, he has a belly by virtue of a health issue- nothing more- he has had serious shoulder surgeries.

He has a difficult time buying anything that fits. He had a suit "custom made" not long ago in Toronto, which sort of swamped him, and did not have enough correction for his belly.

To begin with, I drew a little sketch of what need to be changed from the "average" suit draft.

(I have to post photos because I can't hook up my scanner to this computer.)

One: most modern styled drafts will produce a wide back and shoulders. I measured his custom suit which had a cross back measurement of 17 1/2" yikes- no wonder he looked a bit swamped in it.

Two: his waist measurement- he has a belly that is bigger than his chest measure. The suit jacket he tried on billowed below the belly- I could pin up at least an inch of body length at the back of his hip pockets.

Length: I like to get a measurement from the nape of the neck to the CF waist on the person. I use it when drafting to ascertain the placement of the front neck point above the back neckline- this affects the balance of the coat.

People are three dimensional- whenever you encounter increased size around the body it corresponds with an increase in length. Period. You have to allow for it otherwise you will have a problem with the balance of the garment.

I am going to work through this and you may think that I am going about it in a strange way- but it is the way I am going to approach it. I like to understand why things are the way they are, so I confess that I tend to alter and adapt systems that tell you what to do but don't explain the reasons for doing it.

goodbye Douglas Campbell

This autumn has been too full of deaths of people of my friendship and acquaintance.

Today we say goodbye and farewell to an icon of Canadian theatre, Mr. Douglas Campbell. His image stares out at us at work from a variety of photos over the years, from arriving on the train with his wife and children to the cricket team's annual photo.

I first met Douglas in 1990 when I went out to Theatre New Brunswick to work on A Christmas Carol. Douglas was Scrooge, and what a Scrooge he was! What a voice and presence.

He was frightening in his gruffness and BAH humbugs then was utterly transformed as he was redeemed at the end, childlike, gleeful and mischievous.

I had many opportunities in the intervening years to work with him as he acted-and directed. Most notably to me, I worked on Oedipus Rex, a role he performed in 1954 (I believe) and then directed in 1997 with his son as the lead. Tanya Moiseiwitsch designed the original and at an advanced age returned to guide the design through the remount. I have some cherished Polaroids of Ben in costume as Oedipus with Douglas directing at the photo call, with Tanya in a wheelchair off to the side watching over it all.

That year,1997, he lived next door to us, my daughter was not yet a year old - she found him very amusing- and we got to know him a little more- a kind hearted soul who once even brought in our laundry while we were at work and rain was threatening.

A legend of Canadian theatre has gone and will be missed.

Back at it

Well, It has been an eventful time since I finished work in August.

I finished packing up the main floor of my house for extensive

renovations so I could be warmer in the winter, get more light in year-round, and move the kitchen to the middle of the house to better use

the space I have.

I spent a week (not enough time) at a wonderful cottage on Manitoulin Island, walked the cup and saucer trail, (in the picture above) sat on the dock, did puzzles and read a lot.

Got back, and I've been immersed in home renovations and arranging some work for this fall. This work project has required that I step into the role of organizer for a group of cutters, so I've been arranging rental space and insurance and thread and all the little things that eat up your time but don't give you many tangible results at the end of the day.

Finally, we are ready to move onwards from the seemingly endless dust and noise of renovation and progressing from emails and designs to costume making.

In addition to the big project that I am working on, I am going to make a jacket pattern for a client I have worked with before. I don't usually take on many private clients, but this is a lovely gentleman who has trouble buying anything that fits. His shape has been affected by some health issues and I feel good being able to use my talents to help someone who is so genuinely appreciative to have something to wear that he feels good in.

I started the pattern today, so I'll show you where I get to as I work toward a mock-up and a fitting. Believe me, when you see the pattern, you'll know why I am doing a toile first.

pattern drafting breakdown

The breakdown, (and I don't mean what happens when you have too many patterns to make and not enough time) of the process of making something three dimensional (clothing) from something two dimensional (a pattern) is endlessly interesting and challenging.

There are many "systems" for drafting patterns, with the heyday of the written development and dissemination of these theories being the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century.

They developed measurement techniques, standards and even devices to support their drafting techniques/theories. These theories use the standard proportionate male figure of the time as a base point. Knowing that most figures are neither standard or proportionate, the theories then go into great detail about how to deal with the "disproportionate" among the population. People often get discouraged when they realize that the system won't give them a perfect fit for every body, every time. Every system then needs to be adapted somewhat for the individual figure. That is where the pattern maker's eye and experience come into play, in both the pattern and especially the fitting. Eventually you learn what your "system's" benefits and shortcomings are, then you adapt when drafting.

The adapt and adopt method works well for me for a couple of reasons:

One: I am largely a self taught cutter. Now I know that this is unusual and at times I do wish that I had been fully instructed in a "system" but I think that I have been freed up to modify my approach without feeling as though I am abandoning my training. My other formal training in visual arts has proven to be invaluable in my cutting career.

Two: in the theatre we are not trying to re-create period clothing absolutely-either in the cutting or sewing. We have timelines, budgets and designers input, and actor requirements and I think that even when we are trying to do true period looks it is always filtered through our own aesthetic as well as those of the designer, director and the audience.

Well, that's a long preamble to what I hope to post about in the future which is how I approach looking at "systems" for drafting patterns and getting around the three dimensions of the body, using some traditional information as well as your eye and sense of shape and proportion.

Lofty ambitions I think!

Cheers.

p.s. I'm going to be posting at a snail's pace through the fall, but stay tuned.

beware the no-iron shirt

Beware the no-iron shirt.
Here are two shirts from the same maker, put in the same dye pot at the same time. The shirt on the left is plain cotton, the other is "no-iron" cotton.
The buyer didn't realize that she grabbed the no- iron shirt and the dyer didn't notice it before the dye process began.
The no-iron shirt has been sprayed with a chemical after it is made. You can see that the areas where the spray didn't hit that dyed darker, and you can see some of the over spray drips.
It's shocking that people are wearing this chemical next to their skin. It's all to save a few minutes pressing your shirt but it could be shortening your life. Is the chemical used indicated anywhere on the labels- no it isn't. Would you buy this shirt if you knew what had been done to it to make your life easier?
No wonder people are getting sick more and more.
I'm disgusted by it.

decorations

I find so many things when I clean up at work.
Here's an example of some skirt decorations that were made (and rejected) for a period dress that Libby was working on a few years ago.
I love that they are made with fabric and pipe cleaners- you know the fuzzy wired bendable kind.

I think they are lovely, so since I have a pair of panels, I think I will hang them on my wall for some colour next season.

more detachable collars

Here is an example of the collar pattern made from one of the paper collars
in the last post. With it is a mock-up of a turn down collar and a stand collar.

The turn down collar might be called the "Marley" if I remember correctly.
All the collar styles had style names and they were embossed into the paper or stamped on the inside of the cotton starched collars.

This collar has a deep stand and fall. It also has an extended front on the left side, that tucks under the front portion of the right hand side of the collar when it is done up. The collars and shirt fronts lap left over right for men's wear.
I make the mock-ups out of a specific heavy interfacing, cut raw, with slits as the buttonholes for the collar studs to go through.
They would be tried on with a band collar shirt that has a buttonhole at the centre back of the neckband for the short stud to go through and two buttonholes at the centre front for the longer stud.
The stud goes through the shirt band holes first, then through the holes in the collar, so the front stud needs to be longer to pass through more layers of material. It usually has a pivoting head to help it go through the buttonhole, then you pivot it back to a flat position and voila. You now have a shirt with a collar.