1930's suits

I am in the midst of making a variety of 1930's style suits for one of our upcoming shows.

This one has a single breasted waistcoat, with 2 pockets. The jacket is single breasted notch collar, hip pockets are patch with flaps, and one outside breast welt pocket, no vent and it will have a topstitched detailing.

The trousers are double outward pleated with slant pockets, a straight waistband, and cuffed bottoms.

I am getting a variety of fabrics to work with.

This fabric on my table happens to be a really beautiful patterned wool, that I like a lot!

It has some weight, which is nice for the feel of the time period.

I especially like the trousers of this time period to hang with some weight, so when the actor is tap dancing, the trousers hang and sort of move up and down rather than twist in the wind like really modern light weight fabrics have a tendency to do.

I have been trying to cut directly into the cloth rather than make a toile because our designer availability is limited. That is fine except in this case, I got barely 4m of wool for a three piece suit. It also had a chunk missing on one end so that meant a toile was in order so I could get a fit and then try to lay out all the pieces on the fabric in the most careful and frugal way.

I really didn't expect to manage it but I did!

I got it all cut out, then I realized they had shorted me on the lining as well.

Oh well, it is in Susy and Karen's hands now, trousers are ready to fit again and the coat and waistcoat are well underway.

I'll try to take some photos as we go.

This time of year always feels strange, because we are working ahead, but haven't had many fittings, the casts are just starting in to rehearsal, and the designers schedules are sporadic at best, but in another week or two the energy in the building will change and things are going to get a lot more hectic. Mark my words!

what the ladies are wearing

While I am busy making uniforms and suits, the ladies cutters are busy with their work. Thank goodness for wool, is what I say! I actually have something sparkly to make as well, something stretchy too.

I had the fabric on my table for only a moment but I am finding glittery bits in everything- just wait till I cut it- then it really will be all over everything.

Here are a few things to be seen in the workrooms.

military tunic underway

We've been really busy over the past couple of weeks, getting people in for fittings so we can determine if we need to build new uniforms, or fit them into the ones we had already made.

As of Friday, I believe we are now making three new uniforms. Two will be single breasted and one in a double breasted style.

We are using a heavy barathea wool from Whaleys in a midnight blue colour.

You can see that we are using a pre-made suit fronts/chest canvas in these uniforms instead of building our own. The cost factor is the influence here- the pre-made suit fronts run anywhere from $15.00 to $30.00 each so that is a huge savings over making them from scratch.

We have sourced the gold trim for the sleeves and it is being made to order for us, so hopefully that will come in within the next month. The trouser braid is another issue, we have enough in stock for what we need to do, but we bought the last of it from our supplier, so more sourcing is needed in case there is another pair to be made in the future.

While this is going on, I have turned my attention to the 1930's and have made up some trousers and one suit so far. These have been fit, so I'll be marking alterations on Monday and taking some photos to show you.

I also need to get on with drafting some cutaway coats for some rather full figured gentlemen, and I need some time to think them through before cutting into the fabric.

déjà vu all over again

Well, it has been a very busy start to a new season of work. I have some nice 1880's Victorian work to do, some 1930's, and some Edwardian as well, so I am looking forward to it!

There has been a lot of concern with the economy as we are a business to a large degree dependent on our patron's disposable income.

We are often asked whether we reuse costumes, and the answer is yes, we do. Most shows use at least some pieces from previous productions and because they are made well, they last, and are able to be refurbished, and reused.

This year, one of the things that are being reused are uniforms that we built in 2008.

We refit some of these already, and found to our shock that someone had removed the trim from the sleeves of one of the uniforms! Arggh! These were not supposed to be rented out so it is a mystery why it was done and for what reason. Luckily we had some of the trim left in stock, and since the sleeves were too long for the actor who is now going to wear it, we can shorten the sleeves and retrim them.

I did spend a frantic few minutes searching through boxes of patterns that I kept, hoping that I kept a copy of the sleeve decoration pattern so I didn't have to rethink and redraw it.

Luck was with me and I did have it stashed away. Whew!

I can't keep everything, so I throw lots of patterns out, and you know, everytime I throw them away, I have that nagging feeling that as soon as they hit the recycling bin, I will need them within the next 24 hours. I don't think I am alone in this feeling.

So, then it turns out that we are going to be making a couple more of these uniforms to add to the collection, so now we are on the hunt for more trim. If the trim had not been removed from these sleeves we might have had enough to trim for the two new uniforms, but not now.

And so it goes.......

my jeans pattern

As requested, here is a picture of my pattern for the jeans I made for myself.

I have tried over the years to draft women's trouser patterns from a variety of sources, just out of curiousity, and none of them were satisfactory to me and they didn't get beyond the toile stage. I guess I just didn't want to fix the draft- too much work in most cases.

I also know that I have a tendency to abandon ship on projects for myself- especially if things aren't the way I want the first time. I don't want to talk about the leather jacket under my table or the riding jacket there either. Confession time: one has been sitting there for close to 20 years!

The drafts I used were from Pattern Making for Fashion Design by Armstrong, and Metric Pattern Cutting for Women by Aldrich and I think I even tried the trouser draft from Natalie Bray's book Dress Pattern Designing. I even tried copying trousers I bought. I used to have a great Burda trouser pattern but it was very 1980's. So this has been going on for many years in a half hearted way, and to be honest I didn't keep notes about what I didn't like.

Generally though, for jeans, the drafts were too loose fitting in the body, sat too low at the back waist, or the darting at the back wasn't enough. Sometimes I thought they were too closed in, in the legs, and I think jeans should have a more open leg cut. The CB seam was often too straight as well, and I think jeans should be more on the bias there.

This time, I just drafted them using my general draft for men's breeches/close fitting trousers. This is a draft I have put together over time, taking elements of drafts I like, proportions that seem to work, and just using my general experience and common sense. I had to alter the front fork/ CF curve because I drew it as I would the men's, and there was too much fabric there.

These are cut to fit closely at the thigh but not too tightly, sit below the natural waist, and I wanted them to cover my butt at the back, especially when bending down in fittings- something that I wish the commercial manufacturers would fix! I also didn't want the back waistband to gape- another thing I wish the commercial manufacturers would fix. I'm sure I could go on and on about how difficult it is to find trousers or jeans that fit, and I'm sure you could too.

Should there be a list of complaints? The sad thing is that I am kind of average in size- bigger than I used to be and a bit out of shape :( but a commercial size 6. How difficult it must be for plus sizes for instance. Women buy badly fitting jeans all the time- do they not see it or do they just give up?

I had a dart in the back, which I closed out to make the yoke. The little bit of the bottom of the dart that was left, I eased into the yoke seam. I think that it helps to shape over the seat.

I want to reposition the yoke seam on the next pair, but I will wear these for a while to see if anything else needs modifying. I don't want to rush into anything! I'm almost overwhelmed with myself for actually finishing them.

new jeans for me

I made these this morning! It only took me 4 hours of unfocused sewing (chatting with Lela while I sewed). They aren't quite finished- I need a button and buttonhole, I need to stitch the back pockets on, add some bar tacks, and then to hem them.

They are ok. I don't like the size of the yoke though. Too deep at the back and I think I could drop the waistline at the CB by 1/2". I hate trousers that don't sit high enough at the back, or gape at the back waist and these don't!

My own draft. I have to say that I had tried following a jeans draft for women in a couple of different books and was never happy with the pattern. After a while, I just thought I should draft them as I normally would using the basic draft I have in my head. So I did. I sewed them together, fit them on myself (generally not recommended because you can't see how bad the yoke is!) , took them apart, and recut them with the changes I felt necessary. I will fix the yoke on the next pair.

The denim is not the best quality- just something the local store had for sale.

Nothing like the bad quality of self timer photos is there? Or seeing yourself in bad photos. Oh well. Tomorrow the coat alteration and some repairs/hems to do.

finished trousers

I finished these up a few days ago and sent them off. In the picture on the left, you can see the new pair on the left and the old pair on the right. Better quality fabric makes a huge difference. In the picture on the right, you can see the finished product. They have an elastic inserted inside the waist to be adjustable for whoever will be wearing them, which explains the rippling of the waistband.

So, now that is out of the way, I have to spend the next few days getting ready for work next week and finishing up a couple of things left on my table- one being a pair of jeans I decided to draft for myself, and there's a coat alteration, and the shirt project I want to get going. I should be doing a bit of research on the 1930's and the 1880's but maybe I will wait to see the workload on my table before getting into that. I also have a sweater half knitted that needs the sleeve pattern altered and I have to finish a sock so I have a pair, and I wanted to look into glove making and try that too.

There's just too little time to do all these things, but I am going to try to be disciplined and get on with it!