School: next project
Nov. 22nd, 2012 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzAfter finally finishing my pocketspiece it's now time for my new Project. And, wholly in the line of expectation (as we Dutchmen are wont to say), it's a true Annet.
Several times already I've sighed in desperation, saying "Oh, help, ik heb weer eens wat bedacht." Stupid idea. Stupid inspiration. Stupid muse. I love you Thaleia, but sometimes....
The story started one probably Tuesday on the fabric market in Rotterdam. I found a lovely linen in an undeterminable colour of grey-green. Some would call it khaki, but I never quite know what colour they mean when they do. It was printed with orange geishas and off-white letters and blobs, and all in all the winged wise words of Steelweaver spring to mind "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Already I invested a good 35 euro in haberdashery: an orange zipper for the center-front closure, some matching drab orange linen for piping down the raglan seams, and of course the official interfacing.
Last schoolday I spent half my lesson trying to figure out how to get my pattern pieces out of the scant 2 meters of fabric I had. Helen told me to put the hems at the same height, so the geisha's would be all in the same height in stead of all over the place, but there was no way we could get the entire jacket out of this much (little) fabric. Woe!
My homework for this lesson was to find a matching fabric so I could cheat and do some panels with the Actual Geisha fabric, and some in the matching fabric. Since orange is not my colour, I was hoping to find something in this indescribable colour and Lo' and Behold, I did!
The challenge was to now cut my pattern pieces from 2 meters of linen geisha fabric and 2+ meters of indescribable colour linen.
I debated how to go about it. For my figure I need to always cut my front and back pieces into two bits at least or suffer an enormous dart on the bust line. The same goes for my shoulder slope in the back, so my jacket will always have a side-back seam. This makes for much more seam allowance. Sounds simple, yes? At home where I always use a 'scant' 1½ cm seam allowance it is. At school I have to use 2½ cm seam allowance between the panels and 3 at the side seams. Even my armscye seams must be cut with a mere 1½ cm seam allowance until I know all about my own tricky curves. It makesa huge difference in how much fabric you need.
Anyway, debating, debating debating. I love love love the geisha detail in the jacket, which makes it very Firefly-worthy (not that I'll have it finished by January, but that's a whole different story!). We already figured out two weeks ago that the entire fabric is printed two ways. The geisha connects to her upside-down counterpart a little further down the length of the fabric. The only thing that isn't repeated upside down is the off-white text "Thé blanc" and possibly the sideways turned, going left only text "En Chine". (See? totally Firefly proof!)
Teacher Helen wanted me to cut the fabric so I'd have Geisha's on my shoulderblades but I really really want one in the front and I couldn't have both. I cut the side-front and side-back panels without print from the solid colour, which will curve around the body and slim down a wee bit, or so we hope. That left the center-front and center-back panel (not on the fold) and both raglan sleeves.
I drew a line down what I think is the center of the Geisha design (optically, that is. Mathematics have very little to do with this although it only misses by a centimeter) and cut out one center front panel on this line, adding seam allowances around it all.
Of course, I only cut after double- and triple-checking there would be enough fabric for everything!
Then I put the just cut pattern piece on another part of the fabric, and mirrored my patternpiece right next to it. This means that on either side of center-front, the Geisha will match!
Both pattern pieces (with seam allowance!) next to one another (left (wrong) side of fabric). If I do this really really carefully, all that separates the left half of the geisha from the right half is a bright orange zipper.
I was lucky enough to repeat this process with the center back pieces, putting the shoulderblade line right over the 'Thé Blanc' text. I will have a jacket saying White Tea on my shoulder blades. Oh Yeah.
All of this took about three hours... and I still have to do the raglan sleeves at home. I was lucky enough to see that I can still put two Geisha's on the largest back sleeve panel, around elbow height, to balance the off-white of the back out, and that means the front sleeve will have some off-white to balance out the orange from the geisha on my boobs.
Plenty of homework up: doing the sleeves and thread-tracing everything. The next bombshell was that although I bought two different kinds of interfacing already, I'm supposed to learn it the Right Way and I need official interfacing you can only buy at school called "Interflex".
At least Helen could understand my attention to detail, and told me to take my time. But I think this is a lesson learned. First: buy more fabric just in case you want to do some really tricky things with it. And second: always listen to your muse.
Several times already I've sighed in desperation, saying "Oh, help, ik heb weer eens wat bedacht." Stupid idea. Stupid inspiration. Stupid muse. I love you Thaleia, but sometimes....
The story started one probably Tuesday on the fabric market in Rotterdam. I found a lovely linen in an undeterminable colour of grey-green. Some would call it khaki, but I never quite know what colour they mean when they do. It was printed with orange geishas and off-white letters and blobs, and all in all the winged wise words of Steelweaver spring to mind "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Already I invested a good 35 euro in haberdashery: an orange zipper for the center-front closure, some matching drab orange linen for piping down the raglan seams, and of course the official interfacing.
Last schoolday I spent half my lesson trying to figure out how to get my pattern pieces out of the scant 2 meters of fabric I had. Helen told me to put the hems at the same height, so the geisha's would be all in the same height in stead of all over the place, but there was no way we could get the entire jacket out of this much (little) fabric. Woe!
My homework for this lesson was to find a matching fabric so I could cheat and do some panels with the Actual Geisha fabric, and some in the matching fabric. Since orange is not my colour, I was hoping to find something in this indescribable colour and Lo' and Behold, I did!
The challenge was to now cut my pattern pieces from 2 meters of linen geisha fabric and 2+ meters of indescribable colour linen.I debated how to go about it. For my figure I need to always cut my front and back pieces into two bits at least or suffer an enormous dart on the bust line. The same goes for my shoulder slope in the back, so my jacket will always have a side-back seam. This makes for much more seam allowance. Sounds simple, yes? At home where I always use a 'scant' 1½ cm seam allowance it is. At school I have to use 2½ cm seam allowance between the panels and 3 at the side seams. Even my armscye seams must be cut with a mere 1½ cm seam allowance until I know all about my own tricky curves. It makesa huge difference in how much fabric you need.
Anyway, debating, debating debating. I love love love the geisha detail in the jacket, which makes it very Firefly-worthy (not that I'll have it finished by January, but that's a whole different story!). We already figured out two weeks ago that the entire fabric is printed two ways. The geisha connects to her upside-down counterpart a little further down the length of the fabric. The only thing that isn't repeated upside down is the off-white text "Thé blanc" and possibly the sideways turned, going left only text "En Chine". (See? totally Firefly proof!)
Teacher Helen wanted me to cut the fabric so I'd have Geisha's on my shoulderblades but I really really want one in the front and I couldn't have both. I cut the side-front and side-back panels without print from the solid colour, which will curve around the body and slim down a wee bit, or so we hope. That left the center-front and center-back panel (not on the fold) and both raglan sleeves.
I drew a line down what I think is the center of the Geisha design (optically, that is. Mathematics have very little to do with this although it only misses by a centimeter) and cut out one center front panel on this line, adding seam allowances around it all.
Of course, I only cut after double- and triple-checking there would be enough fabric for everything!
Then I put the just cut pattern piece on another part of the fabric, and mirrored my patternpiece right next to it. This means that on either side of center-front, the Geisha will match!
Both pattern pieces (with seam allowance!) next to one another (left (wrong) side of fabric). If I do this really really carefully, all that separates the left half of the geisha from the right half is a bright orange zipper.
I was lucky enough to repeat this process with the center back pieces, putting the shoulderblade line right over the 'Thé Blanc' text. I will have a jacket saying White Tea on my shoulder blades. Oh Yeah.
All of this took about three hours... and I still have to do the raglan sleeves at home. I was lucky enough to see that I can still put two Geisha's on the largest back sleeve panel, around elbow height, to balance the off-white of the back out, and that means the front sleeve will have some off-white to balance out the orange from the geisha on my boobs.
Plenty of homework up: doing the sleeves and thread-tracing everything. The next bombshell was that although I bought two different kinds of interfacing already, I'm supposed to learn it the Right Way and I need official interfacing you can only buy at school called "Interflex".
At least Helen could understand my attention to detail, and told me to take my time. But I think this is a lesson learned. First: buy more fabric just in case you want to do some really tricky things with it. And second: always listen to your muse.
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Date: 2012-11-23 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-23 10:12 am (UTC)