sewing experimentation

[vampyresheep]

Although I don't appear to have gotten much done this weekend, what I have done has been fairly satisfactory.

Been battling with making a mock-up which fits correctly for my Butterick B4929 jacket.  After my Vogue waistcoat fitted so well with minimal alterations, i went into this one with false hope - the first mock-up wasn't even close to fitting correctly!
Finally after taking the waist and hips out a tad, taking nearly an inch off the shoulder seams (plus adding shoulder pads) and taking in the princess seams at the armhole, i finally have a mock-up that fits and actually looks quite flattering - hoping that it will look even better in the finished fabric!
I then played around with altering the sleeve, taking the basic pattern and folding it in half.  I tapered out the lower seam to a bell shape and slashed the upper seam and just tacked it in 6" intervals.  Very pleased with how this has worked out; for the final item I will edge the sleeve and upper seam with bias binding in a contrast colour.

a couple of photos (of course this will look a lot prettier when not made out of sheeting fabric!)
   

Sunday, i was feeling too groggy to be cutting out fabric, so I got on with my other project, creating a fishtail underskirt for my Military Victorian suit.
I had already made a fishtail skirt using this pattern, intentionally using a very lightweight fabric for comfort.  However once i'd put the overskirt on it, I felt that it all looked a bit shapeless and needed some "oomph" around the bottom hem.
After thinking of lots of different options, i went for the simplest one, making an underskirt out of cotton fabric, which flares out at the bottom and to which I'd intended to add lots of netting for body.
However, once I added a ring of poly boning around the hem and tried it on for size, turns out that the result is exactly what I needed!
 

The underskirt now drapes beautifully over the hoop and has even given the overskirt some shape (it was looking a bit baggy before).  I'm still worried about whether it is too lightweight though, hope that it doesn't ride up when walking around outdoors; however I think the netting might look a bit too bulky underneath.

I have also been rather naughty this weekend and made a bit of an impulse purchase on Ebay.  I am blaming morbidfrog  for this, as I found the item when responding to her facebook request for help! ;-)
However, i've been thinking of a striped outfit for a while and this looked a bargain, so yesterday evening I ended up in a bidding war, whilst in the pub, using my ebay app on my phone!  Paid a bit more than I hoped but not over my planned limit and have 10 meters of this:


I'm thinking it would look lovely as a polonaise but I also have a hankering to attempt a Baroque/Marie Antoinette style gown, so it could be my outfit for Gala Nocturna next year!

Comments

[morbidfrog.livejournal.com]

no been busy looking for my blue brocade one but jane says she has some at her work or knows where to get it from. so she will let me know more when she returned from holiday. You have to see jenny amazing strippey outfit on saturday , stunning (will sort photos tonight