Tag: velvet

Velvet coat – almost finished…

Butterick 5266

Not the greatest photo ever – the combination of black velvet and a dark Shed is not the best – but I think you can see the progress on this coat! It has a body now, which is a big improvement on last week’s cape and sleeves. It’s still not quite finished – the hem needs, well, hemming, and it needs front fastenings of some kind. It also needs overlocking around the sleeves, and a jolly good pressing around the collar.

(Before anybody says anything, yes, I know the purple lining doesn’t go with the red outfit underneath. I wasn’t about to go out and buy another five metres of lining when I already had this purple in the stash.)

The saving grace of this project has been its simplicity. If it had been more complicated, there would probably be a lot more swear words in this post. As it is, I simply left out most of the tricky parts to make my life easier. The sleeves will be overlocked to the body instead of slip stitched. The fronts and neck and sleeve hems are topstitched rather than understitched. Where the lining came out a quarter of an inch bigger than the coat (at the sleeve heads and the hem, don’t ask me why!), I simply chopped off the difference and stopped worrying about it. I haven’t bothered with the fourteen metres of braided trim, or the openings in the front panels. Oh, and I left out the side seam vents too. Simple!

Having moaned on about the frustrating parts, I will concede that the sleeve heads eased into place beautifully, as did the collar. I’m now deciding how I want the front to fasten, and whether I’m going to add any kind of trimmings at all. I think I might need at least a little bit of detail on the ends of the collar, to make them stand out against the front a bit more. Paul’s suggested black frog fasteners and sequin trims, and I think he might be right.

Oh, and the poster in the frame, behind the dressform? That’s a little idea we had, that we’re hoping to turn into a reality!

Pinstriped velvet coat and cape

The tidy side

Remember when I bought this fantastic Ikea unit for the Shed, and tidied everything into neat little cubby holes?

Today I had every intention of making a hat. I had everything I needed laid out on the sewing table. Instructions, fabric, buckram, wire, lining, curved sewing needles… but no pattern. I knew it was in the Shed somewhere – most likely in the ever increasing pile of stuff I haven’t put away yet.

THE PILE

This is my (technically Paul’s) big comfy chair – where I can sit to do hand sewing. Except I can’t, because on the chair lives THE PILE. Anything that doesn’t have a tidy home yet, or anything that I’m going to “put away in a minute” tends to be dumped in the pile. I knew the hat pattern was in there somewhere, and I found it almost at the bottom – alongside the missing pattern for my niece’s dress. The last time I’d looked at either of those patterns was May. Eight months ago. Oops.

What you can also see overflowing from THE PILE is a mountain of pinstriped fabric. That’s about ten metres of cotton velvet, which I bought way back in the mists of time when I worked in a fabric shop. Scrunched up underneath it was the pattern for Butterick 5266, a pattern for a Victorian-ish coat with a cape. (Now out of print.) In my infinite wisdom, I decided that the best way to tidy this fabric and get it out of the Shed was to finally sew the dratted coat.

Cape and sleeves

So, I now have the cape part, and a pair of sleeves. Unfortunately I have also remembered how much I absolutely loathe sewing with cotton velvet. And the pinstripes aren’t helping either. They look great, but they’re printed onto the fabric rather than woven in, and they’re not printed on the straight grain. Which means that I have to choose either to follow the pinstripes or follow the grain. Not an ideal situation, particularly with velvet.

Pinstriped velvet

Isn’t this lovely though? That glorious moment when the pinstripes actually match at the seams as though I meant it, makes up for a lot. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make up for the frustrating way that velvet moves around when you sew it, even with the usually fantastic differential feed on my machine. So the pinstripes only match beautifully on one of the sleeves, and of course that’s the one where the fabric kept slipping as I was sewing in the lining, because the velvet was off the grain. And the sleeve that isn’t puckered around the cuff? The pinstripes don’t match up at all. Of course.

And that’s the easy bit.

The front and back panels are so big that they each have to be cut twice from a single layer of fabric. And then lined. I think from now on I’m going to ignore the instructions, and just leave out all the fiddly bits that could go wrong. No braid trimming, no side vents, no slits to put your hands through (what are they for anyway? the thing has sleeves!), no loops for the buttons – nothing. I’ll bag out the lining so it can’t slip around, and I’ll sew on enormous poppers with buttons over the top. Or buy frog fasteners.

It’ll be a few days before I can get back in the Shed to finish this off (my Real Job calls), but hopefully I can get this finished very soon. Then I can gleefully THROW AWAY* whatever’s left of the velvet, and rejoice in my decision to NEVER SEW WITH IT AGAIN.

 

*No, of course I won’t actually throw it away. I’ll give it to a charity shop, or donate it to anyone daft enough to take it off my hands after they’ve read this.

[edit] Well, Lisa of Off With Her Head has admitted to being daft enough – so when I’ve finished the cape, I’ll be sending her a big parcel. Look out for pinstriped velvet millinery, coming soon!

Vaguely Victorian

I’ve been asked to work an extra day this week to help out with a school visit, for which I may have heard myself ask my boss “would you like me to come in dressed as a Victorian?”. The session goes with the Victorian part of our building, Palmer House, which was designed by Waterhouse (of Natural History Museum and Reading Town Hall fame) and built in 1880-82.

Paul, bless him, has managed to rein me in from “I NEED TO MAKE A COMPLETE PERIOD-CORRECT VICTORIAN OUTFIT BY TUESDAY” to “please can we have a look in your wardrobe first”.

Victorian-ish outfit

However, I may have used “dressing up as a Victorian for work” as an excuse to buy a corset. I chose a black brocade one which was on the “corset of the day” offer for £25. It ended up costing me almost £40 by the time I’d paid vat and extra for super-fast shipping, but I still call that a bargain. It’s not expertly made, but it’s no worse than any Vollers corset I’ve owned in the past, and it gives a “Victorian enough” shape under all those layers, so I’m happy with that.

The website was a bit weird – I kept finding other people’s things added to my shopping cart and at one point it kept telling me that I was logged in as somebody else, which made me very nervous about giving them my credit card details. But I placed my order at five to three on Friday, 3pm being the cut off for next day delivery, expecting it to arrive on Monday. The postman knocked on the door at 9:30 on Saturday morning, with my corset! So that was extremely impressive. (He also brought my lingerie-sewing book which I thought had got lost in the trans-atlantic post, so hooray for that too!)

Victorian-ish outfit

I posted on Facebook about making a Victorian outfit in a hurry, and Chris from Progress Theatre offered to lend me a bustle pad from their wardrobe. I replaced the worn-out elastic with cotton tape, and I think it’ll make quite an acceptable late-Victorian silhouette.

Victorian-ish outfit

Next I added my lilac petticoat, for volume, and a plain white vest to cover up the black dress and corset. I went for black foundation layers because I’d originally intended to wear a black blouse, but the two I thought might be suitable turned out to have inappropriate sleeves.

Victorian-ish outfit

Here’s a side view with the bustle. Is my bum going to look big in this? 😉

Victorian-ish outfit

Next layer: the ivory lawn pintucked blouse that I usually wear for being a rural Edwardian when I’m out with the clog dancers.

Victorian-ish outfit

I spent all day making this skirt, but unfortunately velvet doesn’t photograph at all well in poor light so I can’t show it to you properly. It’s Simplicity 2207, the same as my red and black stripy one.

Victorian-ish outfit

And for the finishing touches: a black wool man’s dress waistcoat, a length of black ribbon, and a marcasite brooch in the shape of an owl. I wear this waistcoat to work quite often, usually with the owl on the lapel.

Victorian-ish outfit

I must admit that I’m not completely convinced by the bustle, even though it’s much smaller with the weight of the velvet skirt on the top. I was looking at photographs of Victorian teachers and the more I see the less I’m convinced that a bustle, even a small one, was worn underneath everyday workwear.

I’ll try the whole outfit on together, and hopefully I’ll be able to get some better photos while I’m at work tomorrow. I can’t do much about my extremely un-Victorian hair and glasses, sadly, but I think this is not too bad, considering I had almost all of it lurking in my wardrobe already!

Vogue 1202

Vogue 1202

This is Vogue 1202, a designer Donna Karan pattern. I’ve had it in my stash for about a year. I kept unfolding it, looking at the size of the pattern pieces, folding it up and putting it away again. The piece above is the front, and it measures 140cm wide by 160cm long. Which is much larger than my cutting table.

I folded away my cutting table and made enough space on the floor to cut out the pattern. But before I did that I had to use my psychic powers to figure out which size to cut out. Obviously the size of the bust doesn’t matter at all in a draped pattern like this one. But the waist does matter, and the finished waist measurement isn’t given anywhere. Yes, there are measurements on the pattern envelope. But anyone who’s been sewing for more than five minutes understands that those are nothing more than a guideline at best.

Vogue 1202

I plucked a number out of thin air and made a size 12, which turned out to be at least two sizes too small. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to find this out until the top was finished and I could try it on. Thankfully the fabric is stretchy, and once I’ve managed to wriggle the stupid thing over my shoulders it does (just about) fit around my waist.

You can see the lovely draped effect around the waist, which is sadly lost on me. I’m so short-waisted that the main body of the top simply folds right over it and covers it up. The sleeves aren’t as long as they look, by the way. They’re very narrow, so they fit very close to your lower arm and then the upper sleeve billows over them. This works something like a straitjacket, ensuring that you can’t move your arms despite the voluminous nature of the top.

Vogue 1202

Here’s the back, which is the main reason I wanted to make this top in the first place. I have a selection of brightly-coloured vests and t-shirts that I think would look great underneath. (I also have a sparkly-backed bra, if I’m feeling particularly adventurous.) You’re supposed to sew nine tiny snap fasteners to the back of the very high neck, but I think I’m going to go with four big ones.

I was hoping to feel very glamorous and sexy in my new designer Donna Karan top. Then I tried it on, and realised that it looks as though I’ve been to the hairdresser’s and forgotten to take the cape off. Oh dear.

I wouldn’t recommend this pattern for anybody who wasn’t very long-waisted, or willing to take a gamble on what size they needed to cut out. I’m sure Donna Karan’s very clever, and I’m sure this top would look great on the right person… unfortunately that person isn’t me. In fact, I’ve already scrunched up the pattern pieces and thrown them away so that I don’t try and make it again in a different fabric, in the hope that it might somehow magically fit differently a second time.

Somewhere in the stash I have some fabric that I’d earmarked to make the matching skirt. Given that the skirt pattern doesn’t come with any finished measurements either, and has a very similar construction, I’m not entirely certain that’s going to be a good idea.

Sparkly Velvet Tunic

Butterick 5260

This is Butterick 5260, a variant on View A. I only had a very small piece of fabric, so I ended up shortening both the top and the sleeves. It was supposed to be a short dress, but it’s a long top now! I also did away with the little piece of elastic gathering at the front, because I just couldn’t get it to sit right.

I made this in one afternoon, before going out for cocktails and dinner with friends that same evening. It went together really quickly, and I’m very pleased with it. The only down side is that the glitter has a tendency to spread itself everywhere!

Floaty Velvet Skirt

Vogue 1170

This is Vogue 1170, another Rachel Comey pattern. I actually made this one first, and it inspired me to try the pink party dress.

You might recognise the design of the back – it’s pretty much identical to the dress, including the not-invisible zip! (This one wasn’t supposed to be invisible, but it should still be less visible than this.) I didn’t bother with the hem facing on this one – because the velvet has a slight stretch to it, I exaggerated the flared hem by simply stretching the fabric as I ran it through the overlocker.

Vogue 1170

You can’t really see the details on the front, but the skirt has the same angled seams as the dress. It also has tiny little pockets, hidden in the seam of the waistband. I don’t know that I’d bother with those next time. Normally I’m all in favour of pockets, but they were fiddly to make and they’re too small to hold anything useful!

You’ll just have to trust me that this one looks much better on a real person with a real bottom, than it does on my dress form.

Butterick 5260

Butterick 5260

This little dress is the first time in ages that I haven’t made a single alteration to the pattern as I was going along. I simply cut out the pattern, cut out the fabric, and sewed it all together according to the instructions. Very unlike me.

It’s Butterick 5260, view C.

The dress is much longer on me than the pattern illustration suggests. I’m about 5’5″, and it sits just above the knee. For some reason the sleeves have come out extremely long – they completely cover my hands. As it turns out I don’t mind that, but it was a bit of a surprise when I tried it on!

The fabric is a devoré (or burnout) velvet of unspecified fibre. I suspect polyester. It’s one-way stretch, and it was much easier to work with than I expected. There was the usual amount of fluff clogging up the sewing machine and the overlocker, but the pieces didn’t shift about too much while I was sewing.

I think a future project needs to be a range of slips in different colours, to wear underneath. Otherwise I’m not entirely sure how much wear I’m going to get out of a mostly-transparent dress!

Joolz’ velvet skirt

Joolz' velvet skirt

Despite my determination that I would no longer be sewing for anybody but myself, my friend Joolz managed to convince me that she really needed a new velvet skirt. It’s about three years since I last made one of these, and I didn’t really need very much convincing to make another.

These simple elasticated skirts go right back to where I started my first business. I made them in velvet, and in four layers of net. Until we started printing the Baby Horrors t-shirts (and Baby Cthulhu in particular), the skirts were the most popular items that I sold.

This one’s simply four tapering panels, elastic at the top, trimmed with lace at the hem. Inside the waistband is a tiny pocket for a hanky, which was a special request from Joolz.

Happy to oblige!

Corduroy and Velvet

Corduroy and velvet

This weekend I’ve been sewing the waistcoat to go with the Dorset buttons I made last Sunday. The pattern is McCalls 8285, and the fabric is a sage green cotton velvet. It’s almost finished – I just need to make the buttonholes, and sew a little silver buckle onto one of the straps at the back.

The trousers I actually made a few weeks ago. I didn’t photograph them because as soon as they were finished I put them on, and I’ve been wearing them (or washing them) ever since! They’re another pair of Vogue 1034, this time in black needlecord with a bit of a stretch to it. The pockets and waistband are lined with the remnants of the Sea of Holes fabric – just so I could feel amused by having pockets full of holes. (Yes yes, groan, I know.)

The trouble with wearing both cord and velvet is that they both act a bit like velcro when it comes to fluff. The cords accidentally went through the washing machine with a stray tissue which left them all white and fuzzy, and now they’re covered in green dandruff from cutting the velvet.

This outfit is two-thirds of what I’ll be wearing when I go out playing the recorder with the clog dancers. I now have just less than three weeks to either make or buy a shirt with long sleeves and no collar. I’ve got miles of white polycotton that’s suitable for shirting, and two patterns that would be fine. One is Folkwear 117 that I’ve made before, and the other is McCalls 5976. It just remains to be seen whether I’ll have time to make one of them, or whether I’ll need to dash down to the shops. Thankfully pintucked shirts seem to be in fashion at the moment, so hopefully I won’t have too much trouble finding one that’s suitable.

Three weeks until my first recorder-playing performance in about eighteen years. Gosh.