Childen's wear drafting and trying to find information

     I recently needed to produce a few garments for a child, and it occured to me that I had only one drafting book to reference for children's wear.

That book is the Winnifred Aldrich's  Metric Pattern Cutting for Children's Wear and Babywear. 

I have an older edition so out of curiosity I borrowed a newer edition just in case. I found there were  some changes to some of the basic drafts which made me wonder. 

Things like the calculations for neck width used 1/5 neck minus 2mm now its 1/5 neck plus 2 mm on some drafts.Were there errors in the older drafts or just typos? Strange.

     I wanted to find a draft for a one piece snowsuit. It is not a garment covered in the Aldrich book. The child would arrive after quarantining, go for fittings, alterations would be done there, and then be on camera two days later.   They didn't want a waist seam in the snowsuit, so I had to get it right the first time. I needed to find basic torso girth measurements for children so I could have some kind of reference point. "It shouldn't be difficult" I thought to myself....... Anyway, it sent me down a rabbit hole of internet searching.

I did finally find a study of children's measurements here, done in 1939. So I waded through all of this and got a number range for height. 

I called friends with children too! "how tall is your child? Can you take a measurement of his torso girth for me?"

What a run around for information! Oh I forgot to mention, all I received was height and a chest measurement taken by a parent. That is all I was working from. What a business! and let's not talk about the deadlines.

What else did I find? I found a snowsuit draft on a Russian website, which I downloaded for reference and I could follow along looking at the diagrams. My desktop translated the pages, except for the sizing tables!! because they are photos not text! Drat!

I was on Pinterest and I found an Italian children's cutting book. In Italian, of course. Again, I could follow along by "reading" the diagrams. But I don't think there was a one piece snowsuit draft there either. That book, by Antonio Donnanno is available here in English.

I decided to basically stick with the Aldrich using the flat overgarment blocks for jackets and the flat two piece trouser block, and melded them together so they looked right ot me.

Once I made the basic draft, one of the things I had to take into account was the thinsulate lining. My base pattern was for the lining, but the outer fabric layer needed to be bigger than the under layer. I think I read somewhere about re-calculating the draft for the amount and type of insulation being used, maybe it was on the russian drafting site, maybe on a german site....I can't remember now.

Anyway, in the end, I figured out how much bigger to make the shell and made a pattern for that too. 

It was lots of work mentally and then a lot of work just cutting and sewing them. (yes, plural! I needed to cut two of them) I think they turned out really well, The best part is that they fit. I breathed a sigh of relief. 

We did get stuck waiting for zippers to arrive, but all in all it went fairly well. 

The shutdowns have made getting supplies a bit more challenging! So many things are being shipped its a miracle everything gets to where it is going.

Cutting an "old fashioned" bathing suit

Tucked in amongst the suits and trousers we are making, is a little project that was a lot of fun to do.
We needed to make an old fashioned bathing suit for the character of "the lifeguard".
Sort of like the gentleman second from the left in this photo.

First the material- we used a wool/Lycra blend from Whaleys which for some reason I cannot find listed on their website- I hope it has not been discontinued! It is really fabulous fabric. Pricey- yes, at $78/ yard  (2008 pricing from our stock tag) but for specific projects like period tights or period bathing suits, nothing else that I have used compares to it. Anyhow, being wool it does shrink too, so a wash and dry to preshrink it was necessary.
For the red stripes, we used a lightweight poly cotton colourfast knit that was cut into 3" strips and laid on top of the wool/Lycra base.
It is important to make sure the red was not going to run and turn the whole thing pink!

I had to make a few pattern decisions right off the bat. There are a few options for making this pattern.
Breaking it down- where do we want the seaming to be?
It could be an all in one unitard pattern- no waist seam. These unitards often have no CF seam at all. Sometimes they have a side seam, but many do not. In that case the pattern would have to have a CB seam from the neck down through the CB of the seat. All the body shaping happens through that one seam.
I didn't think that a CB seam in the bodice area would look right. Plus I am applying stripes, and that didn't seem like a good shape for this.

So I decided that the bodice should like a tank top, with only side and shoulder seams.

That leaves the lower section to think about.

Normally a pair of shorts has a waistline, CF, side and CB seams to shape around the body. I decided to not have a CF seam in the shorts, allowing the stripes to be applied flat across the front.
I decided to keep the waist seam, which would allow me to fit and adjust the garment length very easily.
Since we were applying stripes, I figured that a stripe could be used to disguise the waist join.
That meant that the back of the shorts would have a CB seam and all the length required through the fork or crotch extensions would be on the back piece.

This is the first fitting, cut right into the fabric and zigged together.You can see that I have pinned some length out of the bodice section. This was just at the back waist not in the front.The designer did not want this fit very tightly to the body, so I left the overall fit around the body as is, and honestly the waist seam allows a good fit without it being stretched to the limits.

I basted on a few stripes to confirm their width. I thread marked the neckline and armhole lines but did not insert any elastic at this point as I wanted to confirm the design lines.

The next step was to mark the alterations, take it apart, cut the stripes and start sewing them to the base. We used a coverstitch machine to apply the stripes. The only tricky part was that we worked from the inside as we wanted the covering threads to cover the raw edge of the red stripes. The usual double line stitch of the coverstitch was now on the inside.

You can see the inside of the fronts more clearly here with the stripes applied.
At the waist we joined the bodice to the shorts with a flat overlapped seam rather than a regular seam so the join would not be noticeable. Again we used the coverstitch for this.
The same technique was used to put the shoulders together. This is much less bulky overall. The only seams that had regular four thread serging were CB of the shorts, inseam and the side seams.

The stripes on the front of the shorts section will determine how we place the stripes in the back section. If this were pre-striped fabric I would not be able to control the look of the stripes overall, and would likely have to cut this quite differently.


On the back of the shorts section, the CB seam was joined first, then it was attached to the back bodice. Then the stripes were applied.

You can see here that the third stripe down from the waist takes a drastic turn from the side seam under the seat, then over to the inseam. The stripes will match at the side seam, and will also match to the corresponding stripe on the front inseam.
This is where a pre-striped fabric will be a problem visually! It would never match up to the front at the inseam. Here we can manipulate things to be as we want them. Very tricky, don't you think?

Once all the stripes had been applied, the shoulders were sewn, and then the sides and inseam.

The final process was to finish the neckline and armholes. We wanted to install elastic in those edges but not in the usual manner of zigging or serging the elastic in. This seemed too thick to do that successfully. So we serged those seam allowances down to a scant 1.5cm, turned them to the inside  and stitched a half inch away to form casings, then fed elastic into the armholes and neckline. We could then adjust the length of the elastic as needed at the next and final fitting as seen below.

How much fun is that? 

It was a good project to stretch (haha) my pattern making and our sewing techniques.

cheers!

fitting and pattern alterations part 2

I thought I would follow up a little on the fitting and pattern alteration post where I was dealing with pattern alterations for scoliosis.

I had to make three different garments for this particular person, all with different patterning requirements.
We made a suit, a bolero and a 1950's style casual jacket. (with a quick change (11 seconds) front panel held on with magnets but that is a whole other bit of business)

With the bolero, I have created a seamed panelled back as it gave me more control over the fit. This garment does not have shoulder padding, whereas the suit jacket does.

I have laid the left body pieces over the right sides to show the differences in the two sides of the body.
I did end up lowering the armhole on the left side of the body as compared to the right.
I think you can see how much lower the left is at the shoulder, as well as the difference in width that was required on his right side at the upper blade area.


I have found this to be both a challenge and an interesting learning process.
Tomorrow I will try to lay out the pieces for the 1950's casual jacket which has a yoke as well as panel seams.

In terms of the suit jacket back, here it is in a finished state.

I think the comment about adding a dart on the left shoulder to make it visually more symmetrical was spot on but I left it as is because I had no time to re cut and reconfigure. If I had time to do it over, I would have tried to transfer some of the left horizontal drop into a shoulder dart rather than take it up with a shoulder pad.
Of course this stand does not reflect his actual shape so there is an air space on the right blade.

One of the job challenges is letting some things go, because we have such time pressures.
He was very happy with all the pieces we made, the designer is happy, I have learned something so I am happy too.

No time in the fittings to take really good shots for a blog, I make do with photos taken for the designer's references. :)

Catching up!

I feel as though I blinked and suddenly we have gone from December to mid February in a flash!

I hate to keep saying the same thing but it has been really busy in my world.
I took on a project that was late in starting, but I felt that we could pull it off.
I had people in place, the fabrics arrived just before the Christmas holiday started, I made some patterns then I came down with the flu.
I put everyone off for a few days, while I lay in bed feverish. Once my fever broke, I dragged myself to the studio to cut so we could be prepared for fittings the next week. What a hellish thing the flu is.

Well now that project is over, I have been back at my main job for a month now- and I waved goodbye to that project on Saturday.


One more project to be delivered - a ballet costume-  and I will be down to a single job and I can't tell you how good that feels.




Here is my Ballet coat.
I sent it in with a colleague for a fitting as I was otherwise unavailable on that day. Little did I know that the dancer I cut it for was injured and another dancer showed up to be fit. Luckily, they were quite similar in size!
There were a few changes that the designer (Colin Richmond)made, as you can see- shortening the hem, lengthening the sleeves, and he took it in quite a bit through the body- I had cut it with a lot more ease and had the skirts flared from a higher position on the body. The roll line was moved up and the collar reduced in proportions.
He added fur cuffs and a back belt.
Generally though, not too bad for a first fit in fabric.

Now it is boxed up ready to be delivered! I hope I get to go in and see the dress rehearsal, the show looks amazing from the sketches I have seen and the promo videos. The ballet wardrobe is one of my favourite wardrobes and everyone there deserves huge credit for their beautiful work!!



Next up in my world are productions of Guys and Dolls and HMS Pinafore! Two musicals that I have a great fondness for. I also have a 12th night that I will be working on so that should keep me busy!
Hopefully I will find more time to blog about them than I have recently.

Oh!
I also added something useful to the studio....
I have been on the lookout for a larger sized male judy, and found one last week on an online sales site. I didn't really need a full body judy, but he is a beauty! The price was well within my range and I just couldn't pass it up. It is a 42 young men's size which is great as the torso is longer- more proportional- to someone 6 feet tall, which is so much better than the standard 5'8" models.

Back to work tomorrow.

waistcoats on the bias

I am making some suits for a show and the designer has designed the waistcoats to be cut on the bias.
OK, I think- or rather I didn't really think about it much at first- no problem.

I know it isn't really an impossible task, but it is time consuming and it is always hard to judge how much more time consuming until you are in the midst of it.... So lets break it down.

The basics:
Firstly- the design is a 1930's double breasted waistcoat with a laid on collar/lapel.
The cloth is a windowpane check. White on black. The windowpanes are rectangles not square.

Challenge: Bias- it stretches, so it needs control.
Solution: fuse straight grain fusible interfacing onto bias fabric.

Challenge: the true bias on a pattern with rectangles gives no happy visual location for the CF line.
Solution: draw a line through the corners of the rectangles and use that as a CF line, so it is not on the true bias.

Challenge: a traditional vertical dart in front will not be a good choice as it will distort the look of the "bias"
Solution: close out the front dart and transfer it to the neckline where it will eventually be covered by the collar.

Challenge: which grain to cut the collar? With the neckline dart, the laid on collar will never be able to match the fabric of the body. It can only match up to the dart, the worry is that it will just look like a mistake.
Solution: cut the collar/lapel so it is a contrast grain so the windowpane contrasts with the body- make a detail out of it.

Challenge: applying the fusible to the wool, making sure the right and left fronts are mirror images. dealing with shrinkage that comes with fusing.
Solution: Use a fusible that is somewhat translucent so I can see the windowpanes through it.
Draw out the pattern pieces on the fusible giving a clear CF line.
Block out the fabric in a single layer at the ironing table using a metre stick and a square, so the windowpanes stay square and true.
Chalk the pattern pieces onto the wool. including a clear CF placement line.
Apply the fusible to the wool carefully maintaining the alignment of CFs and overall placement.
Fuse one front, re block wool, chalk other front, and repeat making sure the alignment of the other front is a mirror image of the first.

At this point, the pieces are rough cut and I have to take them back to the table and check and redraw the pattern, because fusing always shrinks slightly.

Do the same process for the lapel/collar pieces.

Repeat for the second vest which must match the first.

This is the idea, partially done and placed roughly in position. We are going to put the welt pockets on the straight grain to match the lapels.

I think it will look very striking once it is finished, but oh boy it took a lot of time to get them cut out!

mid 1950's references

I posted photos of the mid 1950's jackets that I recently made, and I thought it might be interesting to show some of the references I used to make my patterns.

There were the sketches and visual reference provided by the designer, but I like to research a bit more in order to make the patterns. I like to look at various drafts of the period I am trying to recreate but I don't actually use them because I don't have time to find out if they do or don't work on someone else's dime. I use my basic drafting set up and modify from there for fit and style.

I have a small collection of reference materials to use, and here are a few things that helped me.
I have had some opportunity to make 1950's  suits before but I think I really was not successful in getting the silhouette right. I was determined to do better this time.

One thing I found was a chart showing proportionate back widths for jackets- you can see they offered three distinct widths for each chest size, depending on the style of jacket the customer wanted-
1. regular
2. modified drape or wide shouldered young men's
3. drape coats or lounge coats


You can see that for a size 38 the back width could be between 8 1/8 inches  and 8 3/4 inches

Compare that to the standard proportion of  approx 7 1/2 inches for a size 38 across back.

We wanted a more extremely young men's shape for these jackets and in looking at some of the period photos of these musicians, and other people of the period, the jackets were quite roomy, boxy and slightly oversized, and long. The waist shaping was minimal, the visual waistline was lower than the natural waist and the hip was quite slim. The shoulders were wide and quite square, buttoning point was lower, hence longer lapels, and pocket placement was lower as well.

These pages give an indication of the body silhouette, shoulder width, waist shaping, and overall jacket length.

These jackets were for young men so you can see that the studio style is longer, has lower set pockets and less waist shaping.

The length for someone 5'10" is 32".

Suit drafting uses a formula to determine length and a basic jacket length calculation is half height minus something- minus 4 inches or 1/2 h minus 1/16 of height.
If the actor is 5'10" (70") /2 = 35 minus 4= 31 inches
in metric which I prefer to use
178cm/2 = 89 minus 11.125cm = 78cm (30 3/4")

So these jackets are longer than that.
for 5'10" 70/2 = 35 inches so 35 -3 would give us a 32" length.
for 6'2"   74/2 =37 inches so 37-3 = 34 length



I started then with this information in hand, set up my drafting as I usually do, and made modifications until I though I had a good idea of where I was going.
I then cut out a half jacket in some cotton I had and put it on my stand. I photographed that and sent it to the designer for his input.
Once that was done, I took an idea from my colleague Evan and I drafted in half scale to show the changes and modifications to my basic draft. This is what I then referenced in making the subsequent drafts for the other jackets.
That half scale draft is now tucked away in my files for future reference.

losses and carrying on

Six months since I last posted.,
2016 has turned out to be so very trying, in so many ways and I am hoping it will come around and settle down a bit. This I wrote a few of months ago, and it still hasn't settled down. Now I am looking for the end of the year to close this chapter.

I/We have lost so many people, friends, colleagues, mentors, individuals who have connected the past of our profession to the present and future that it seems overwhelming.
I started to list them and I had to stop.

Carrying on is what we have to do and in that spirit we continue on.

The studio is up and functioning, and I am hoping that the scent of scented candles will eventually go away in time. (this sentence brought to you from the department of redundancy department)
I am putting my hopes in time and Febreze unscented. It has been an enjoyable space to work in so far. The cats from the other space have been brought over and they are doing their job, keeping those pesky mice at bay. Jay's kiln is wired in and he is producing his beautiful work again. Andy and Rob are still organizing the wood and machinery and before getting back into the swing of things making cutting boards and such, they are building some very nice feral cat winter shelters.

I finished a project for a client that I felt was a bit of an experiment, making a suit long distance and doing the fitting over Skype. I am happy to say that it worked out quite well which is a relief for me. Here is the jacket in process. Silvia did a fabulous job with it, and I made the trousers and waistcoat.

The first studio project though was something sparkly, four jackets for Million Dollar Quartet. I usually do projects that allow for me to fit the actors but this time it was long distance and we did it with measurements and photos and a couple of cross your fingers and hope it all works out. Which they did, so a win win for all of us. Design: Cory Sincennes for the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton Alberta

Poor Elvis, I don't think I got a finished shot of that jacket. :(

I have a few more projects coming up and some pictures of some work that happened over the past six months. I also want to give some thought and discussion about training new tailor/cutters which is a topic that will be very pertinent in the near future.

work table weeks 8 and 9

Time is flying by.
Week 8 saw the delivery of a missing fabric.
This jacket was based a bit on this reference, below.
Menswear is interesting because there are many options to play with, but for many people the details elude them because, lets face it, they are subtle. The changes are more easily seen over the decades rather than the season or the year. If you delve into it though, you are rewarded with many interesting details, and I have fun with these details, encouraging designers to consider incorporating them into the suits they want me to make.
 Nowadays- everything looks the same, whereas say in 1938 as this catalogue page shows, there are more "sporty" or casual models available. Still a three piece suit but a different vibe than one for business wear. The one on the left offers a two button, notch lapel, patch pockets, the bottom ones with flaps, and the back view has an expansion gusset, as well as a bit of fullness pleated into a half belt at the waist. The one on the right is a 2 button, semi-peak lapel, three patch pockets with inverted pleats, lower pockets with flaps and the back pleated into a half belt. Both have top stitching detail. We are going to go with the one on the right but with the plainer pocket style of the one on the left.

I have been given a nice blue plaid flannel to work with. I had a devil of a time getting it all laid out nice and square on my cutting table, so in the end, I had to cut the yardage in sections then block it at the iron table, using my metre stick and a square to then press it properly just to get it in a better shape to cut out. It literally took me most of the day to cut that three piece suit. 

Here is the back, just ready in week 9 with a fitting yesterday. 

Yesterday, week 9 also looked like this (below). I managed to cut out the shell of a velvet coat, cut all the bits and pieces needed for a pair of breeches that I fit earlier in the week, I cut out my last 1840's waistcoat and trousers, and switched back to the eighteenth century today so I can call fittings next week when that designer is back in residence. I cut another cloak and made a coat pattern and cut it in muslin. The I will have to flip back to my 20th century things, have a few last fittings, and cut some of the final bits like top collars and mark alterations. 

Tomorrow is already Thursday! I have so much to get done and I really could use another pair of hands- not so I have four myself, but another set of sewing hands. We have a lot to get done.

vintage shirt donation

I was walking by the office the other day and noticed a number of shirts, freshly laundered and just hanging on the back of the door.
It turns out that they were a donation.
These are old shirts.
I don't want to quite hazard a guess, without doing a bit of research, but I took some photos to show you. I want to say WWI era to 1920's but I am leaning towards earlier.
They are in very good to fair condition, the fabrics are still bright and crisp, and have been well taken care of.
They are French, as in from Paris, not Quebec.
The labels read David, 32 Ave de l'OPera, Paris. Each shirt has some kind of number hand embroidered in the side seam gusset, which I assume is for laundry services.
They are made with a combination of hand and machine stitching. The buttonholes are all hand made, the machine stitching is tiny tiny tiny- I bet more than 24 stitches per inch. I will have to get closer and count.
A variety of details:
Some of the shirts, such as this one, pull on over the head, some button up the front. One has a contrast bib front in a striped fabric. All have the small band collar made for wearing a detachable collar. This one has fullness gathered into the back yoke, and a small pieced section on the back of the sleeves. The cuffs are interfaced with something very stiff, I had to wet it and press with a hot iron to uncrumple them. I haven't taken any measurements but they are ample in the body, longer in the back and have small hand inserted gussets in the side seams. The seams in general are about .5mm wide, as is the hem.
The armholes are felled with quite a wide finish- 1.5cm or so by guessing.

Maybe someone out there has better sleuthing skills or more time to spend looking for information. I wonder when this business was  operating in this location?

More to come as I have them pressed up and measured.

Suits: the finishing details

Well, we are reaching the finishing stage for our suits. I thought I would share a few photos of the finishing details here.

Marking the lapel buttonhole, ready to go to the machine. You can see the way the under collar has been hand stitched onto the jacket and how the collar end has been finished

Here is a view of the inside of the back neck. I cut two piece top collars nowadays because a lot of the fabrics we use don't respond to being stretched and shrunk. This one actually is a stretch wool! A challenge to work with, but if carefully handled you get results like this.

A close up of the finished jacket front.

Here is a view of the top collar of a linen jacket, nicely matching at the centre back. This one had top stitching details on the patch pockets and the front edges.

Front view

Back view.















                                                             



Here is a silk, linen and wool windowpane check jacket with a notch collar and patch pockets.
This one turned out very nicely. I am not sure how well it will stand up to wear and tear, but for now it looks great.

This one needs a final press and we don't have a stand that shows it well. Wait! did I forget to put the lapel buttonholes in?
No, I think they're in, just very subtle. DB in a tone on tone stripe wool. I guess I will check the jacket tomorrow just to be sure.

This one is one of the last minute additions, in the fitting it went from a two button to three ( good thing we hadn't taped off the roll line and had the front edge still basted! ) a ticket pocket was also added at that time. This is a black wool tone on tone herringbone stripe. These shoulders have a flatter look that the other jackets, the seam allowances have been pressed open at the shoulder/crown of the sleeve, to give less shoulder expression. They have just a little sleeve head of soft lambswool instead of a canvas sleevehead.










Tomorrow, we have to get the last jacket wearable for Tuesday, finish a couple pairs of trousers and get back to finishing our doublets and robes which need to be loaded out by Friday. It will be another busy week, and I am looking forward to the deadlines being over!

A morning's work drafting

 We had a late addition to my workload, so I headed in to work this morning to do some drafting.
I get so much done when I am alone in the room.
No interruptions!
I started the trouser pattern late yesterday afternoon, and finished it up before I started in on the waistcoat and jacket pattern.

I started with my basic grid set up, and draft to the measurements I have- then I modify where I think it is needed. In this case I am dealing with an eight inch chest to waist drop and a drop of five inches waist to hip. So a bigger broader chest and slim hip size. I made a little modification in the back   length as well splitting  the back and opening it up for a bit of a forward head/neck.

 

The jacket starts with my grid set up as well- and I made a mistake  in my set up, forgetting in a moment of thinking too fast that I had added seam allowance. So something looked odd.  I say it over and over to other cutter's apprentices and stitchers that if something looks wrong it probably is,  so stop and retrace your steps.
I was drafting in pen to try to make it visible in photos, so you get to see the mess I made!

A bit further into the process, I think on paper, at this stage I change my mind and the lines as I make adjustments on the fly.

I made a further adjustment after getting the pattern cut out, I needed to create a bit more breadth in the upper chest area only.
I had to leave at noon, so I left it to percolate around in my head for the rest of the week end. The fabric should arrive Tuesday morning and I need to put the scissors to it right away.

Sorry about the photo quality, had to be quick about it all and of course the camera battery chose today to run low!

More later.....

Both ends of the size spectrum

Last week I was able to get a couple of fittings on the Bekishe coats that we are making.
These are traditional long coats traditionally worn at weddings.
The designer wanted very soft construction and not necessarily a perfect fit, so these will get some breakdown later. They have only a single layer of hymo for support, no shoulder padding and they will only get a half lining to keep everything soft.
I was happy that they worked out so well. though one could argue perhaps too well, since the fit was pretty spot on.

We have four of these Bekishe and two of the Kapoteh to make in sizes from 36" chest to a 52" chest.

When I am cutting multiples, I prefer to have one prototype fitting to see if I have interpreted the style to the designer's satisfaction. Unfortunately, we didn't have that opportunity, so I was cutting right into fabric hoping that both the fit and the style were OK.

I don't grade my patterns up or down to get the different sizes. I just draft each of them as I go. Grading isn't a skill that I really have- I understand the premise but I really don't have practical experience with it. I tend to draft one pattern in which I work out the proportions I think I will use on the other sizes, ( the amount of waist suppression, the size of the panels at the waist, overall length, the amount of flare in the skirt) make notes and then draft each one separately. Drafting new takes less time than trying to teach myself a new skill set that may or may not be the best choice in the situation.

In the top photo, I am dealing with the smaller end of the size range and the bottom photo shows the larger.

The gentleman in the top photo I had never seen before, I just got his numbers and a photo to work from so I felt very gratified to have such a good fit.

In the bottom photo is someone I have made for before, but hadn't done anything like this for him. 

(you know, I keep certain patterns but honestly I rarely get them out and use them again, not that an eighteenth century coat pattern would have made life any easier)

The challenge for me was to try to quantify my draft in a larger size. 

Most drafting systems are based on a 5'8"tall man with a 36" or 38" chest and as you draft for sizes past about a 44" chest, the formula starts to go wonky. Things like the depth of the armhole and the width of the back neck.

That's when I think it comes in handy to be willing to adapt and adopt bits and pieces of knowledge as you go. It also helps to have a lot of experience, to lessen the worry when cutting right into the fabric.

I do wish I had more time to analyse things like this while at work, but for now I just try to scribble notes on the pattern as I go and hope that at some future time I can go back and look at it, and it will make sense. 

Tomorrow I have one more to cut out in fabric, and the linings and bits of the three I fit this week to cut so they can be finished. 

Then I can start my patterns for the next show. Onwards!

Almost finished or A rack of suits

Oh, we are almost finished the project!
I started bagging up the suits today. I tagged them and double checked everything.
It is very gratifying to have accomplished all this work.

We made five complete tail suits, which included altering the shirts, adding dance briefs and quick changing the bow ties by snapping them to the collars.
We also made 9 other suits, five of which were three piece suits, plus an extra pair of trousers.
We put period collars on the shirts, and quick changed some of them as well.

I put the last eight buttonholes in today as well, so that is done too.

I need to box up the remaining fabric, finish up my paperwork and arrange delivery. I am looking forward to seeing them worn when the show techs.

Next week I start back at my regular gig, and I will be working on three very different shows: Fiddler on the Roof, Mary Stuart, and Blithe Spirit. It should be interesting, and I will keep you posted.