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janestarzLast time I showed you some of my accessories to go with the costume. This time I bring you one last bit of hardware and one last bit of the costume before waving goodbye for now as I'm eager to finish up this dress diary. And who wants to see me making pants anyway? They'll be boring and brown.
First off, I wanted to show you a picture of the chair. I really need a back rest at some point, especially with the chainmail putting an extra strain on my muscles. And the group's cook agreed and wanted a good chair as well.
We found a page showing a diagram of what the owner called "Talorgen's Chair" and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twilightbanana sketched his own version to scale of what he wanted. I trusted his judgement in the matter but he insisted making his first so any mistakes would be made while working on the cook's chair, and not on the captain's chair.
We drew the lines on a sheet of multiplex wood, sawed the bits out, fiddled and fit, and finally got around to drilling holes in the back rest. This will make the chair a little less heavy and serves as decoration as well.
We used a woodrasp to round the edges of the top of the headrest (so one can stand with his arms leaning on it):
Finally, after a layer of woodstain on each side, a made-to-measure poly-urethane cushion (handsewn in there), and extra woodstaining for the logo we ended up with a pretty handsome, completely dis-assemble-able chair:
Strictly speaking, this is not costume, so I'm skipping through this really fast. If you would like to know more, there's an entry on my blog that will tell you more.
Please note I also made the rug that is on the floor there. It's just the same size as the plastic tarp that will protect it from moisture underneath, and it's made from upholstery fabric that was donated to me. It will be secured to the ground along with the tarp.
We had an Anarquendor Picknick a few weeks back, right after I posted about the overcoat. I got to test-drive the gambeson-chainmail-overcoat combination in warm, humid weather. We also practiced some sports, and soon enough I found out that the padded gambeson was slightly too warm.
Instead of hanging my head in shame, I took this as an excellent excuse to make another costume!
Once upon a time, in the year of 2006, I went to Drachenfest with the Yoshida. As a gift to the avatar, I sewed a sleeveless coat with leaves. It was integrated into her costume, which looks like this:
© Drachenfest, 2010
I decided I wanted to make something similar for myself. These are the fabrics I pulled from the cupboard:
Initially, I had decided to take the cream lace and ribbon with the green linen, but it was too cold. So I went looking for a warm colour to add to the mix. A quilter friend of mine says "Every quilt should have a red". The brown in this picture is "my red" -- even though its mostly brown, there's enough red in it to lift the colour scheme back into a warmer mix. Try looking at just the bottom half of the picture by blocking the brown with your hand. It's a much colder colour scheme!
I copied my basic block pattern and added a "skirt" of 125 cm at the waistline. Now I'm tall, but it just fit on the fabric, as long as I made sure the pattern pieces met in the middle. This way the skirt parts could be as long and as wide as they will go. The center front is set to the fold, and center back isn't as it's not a straight line (we have a "dart" at the center back waist).
I put center-front on the fold only to slice the panel open again. I need to move in this! Using bias-tape as a facing, I sewed it around the slit before even serging the edges of my panels.
The front neckline gets a slit too, or else my head won't fit through! I face it with a rectangle of linen, awaiting the collar.
The side-front seam gets pinned and sewn, and then the side-back panels are attached to center-back panels as well. This is as far as I'll take construction before the appliqué! If the entire robe is already assembled, it will be much harder to apply the appliqué because I'll have a whole coat to man-handle in stead of just two panels of a coat.
Time for the appliqué! In the avatar's coat, I had used simple leaves, but I find this ivy leaf on Google Images. It's not perfectly mirrored and it has a simple enough shape that stitching around the edges shouldn't prove too difficult. The image is large enough for a single A4 sheet of paper which is an excellent size.
I trace the leaves (both regular and mirrored) onto Wonder Under (Vliesofix in Dutch). This is a fabric-glue-and-paper that can be used to glue two layers of fabric together and is often used for appliqué and also in corsetmaking.
By using a hot iron, the paper shapes can be glued to the fabric. Once everything cools down and the glue settles, you remove the paper and glue the two fabrics together.
Before I remove the paper, I cut out the leaves with my second-best pair of scissors. There's no need to waste a € 25,- pair of scissors on a mis-cut on paper, right?
Then I decide on thread colours. I could do things with shading, but I settle on the closest match anyway.
One of the two back panels (center-back seam is not sewn yet!) on the table. The cut leaves form potato chips until I glue them down. Here's where I check placement.
I already noticed at this point that the panels are too long, so I leave some room for the hem. It's a shame to have half a leaf falling off the bottom of the coat, right?
I admit it: there's no shame in having a secondary sewing machine. NoKey's old Singer Concerto is just so much better at the satin-stitch (or any zig-zag, for that matter) than my picky and shiny Pfaff Performance. After the first leaf on the Pfaff I clear the atelier of my mess (I'm not the only one doing last-minute sewing), set up the Singer in the living room, and satin-stitch the leaves on one by one. It's so addictive that I find myself sewing at half past eleven on a work night...
There's twelve of the larger leaves on the bottom part of the robe -- three for each quarter (a quarter being side-front or side-back -- even though center front has never been opened). For the top half from the waist up, I want a smaller version of the leaves. Yes, I am addicted.
I decide that since I'm an archer, my left side is more often in front than the right, and I want my robe to reflect this. If I stand ready for archery and I'm aiming at you, you will look onto my left side, right onto my left hip (no, I'm not that tall). I want this side to have extra leaves. Call it "my strong side".
I set up the satin stitch to be slightly narrower for these smaller leaves.
Once all the leaves are stitched on, I sew the remaining panels together, starting with center back as it will need a facing for the back slit. I attach the bias tape to the right side, then sew the panels together, and press the seam open before stitching the bias tape down on the inside.
Impromptu making of facing. Just trace the neckline + shoulders and measure some 7 cm around... at times like these I don't make a big fuss.
The whole reason I need a back facing is because I want to add a label and don't want to see the stitching on the outside. This is my old company's label...
Time for the collar. This collar is four layers of linen, stitched, pressed, turned, pressed and then it gets an extra satin stitch on the Singer. Just because it will be pretty.
You might wonder why I'm such a big fan of mandarin collars?
Well, for one, they look impressive (and, some say, "Romulan"). Secondly, they help in me keeping my bearing, keep my back straight. You'll feel a high collar when your chin starts to droop. So not only does the collar look impressive, it also helps me stay upright and be impressive by my posture.
I add armscye facing. I'm really running out of this brown bias tape at last.
Because of the "left is my front side" I add a facing on the right side seam for lacing. Anyone I'm trying to shoot will only see the coat with the leaves (right-hand picture). My men behind me get to see the lacing. I sew the facing strip to the right side, and press the seam open before folding it inside. It makes for a more crisp finish.
Checking to see if my laces will be long enough for the number of eyelets I intend to put in. Looks like this will work!
The two-part eyelets can be set by my grommet setter. I love that thing to death...
Finished lacing (right side of the garment). I always add a little something to my lace ends. I could have used aglets, but these were the last two wood beads of their kind and they very nearly match the red-brown suedine leaves.
The hem is pinned and pressed. As you can see, it fits the leaves nicely (that's a stroke of luck!) but because the hem overlaps the back of the appliqué leaves, I decide to hand-stitch the hem down. If I had done it all by machine, I'd have a stitching line over the top of my appliqué. That is one of the downsides (if you want to call it that) of first doing the appliqué and then assembling the garment. Personally, I don't mind handstitching and I'm getting pretty fast at that herringbone stitch I love.
Final steps: a satin stitch down the hem, and around the slits. The Singer works so hard it starts to overheat! I let it cool down and once it's colder the nasty whine has disappeared.
Well, that was a first.
As you can see, I really used up a lot of thread for this project. Most of that is thanks to the satin stitch. Considering I bought three spools of thread, this is a fair trade. My thread boxes are too full, and I need to lose some colours, but I'll settle for an even trade!
Well, no project is truly done until the garment is modeled:
I'm not completely satisfied with the fit of the thing. I have a really high waistline (nearly underbust!) that is small. You can see how the garment is too loose at this point, but wearing a belt will help a bit. Larpers are known for wearing belts and it would not look amiss on this robe.
Something I forgot to do was fold out a centimeter at the armscye to make it tighter around the body. You don't need to do this when you're planning to attach a sleeve, but if it's a sleeveless garment you really do, as you can see in the middle picture (same with lowering the neckline, front or back).
In my defense, if you scroll back up to the first picture of the fabrics, you'll see I have a lace mesh ready for the project as well as a bit of trim / braid.
Truth is, I really couldn't see how to integrate these with the red/brown leaves! The trim was just a short bit, not even enough to do the entire hem with. Once I decided to not use the trim, it would have been weird to include the lace mesh fabric for sleevelets.
So the project changed halfway through but the pattern couldn't be adjusted any more. I guess that, since this is just a garment for the warm afternoons to cool down in, and really is my breakfast robe, it's ok to have a little bit of bra showing at the armscye. If need be, I can still make a shirt to wear underneath the robe. Downside to this plan is a) my schedule (T-minus 12 days to Drachenfest and counting) and b) the fact that it's a polyester suedine that should not come near any armpits for any duration of time.
Oooh, yes, and look at the pretty pince-nez I have! I bought it on e-bay and let the optician add my perscription glasses. This way, I can see the enemy coming!
(Please, I don't know what's going on in the back there, I think it's just hanging wonky because I didn't pull it down far enough)
I still have to make myself a pair of pants or two, but I guess that's not really very interesting to document, unless you insist?
We drive off to Drachenfest on Monday the 25th, so you'll have to be patient for a while to see the action-photos... but I promise to return with them as soon as I get them.
It's been quite a journey so far, 146 photos in the set, 7 dressdiary entries in the community, so many comments, and helpful tips! Thank you all for reading and cheering me on! And to keep you hooked & tuned in: I have preliminary plans for a really elaborate dwarven costume as well, so stay tuned and keep stitching!
Cross posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dressdiaries
First off, I wanted to show you a picture of the chair. I really need a back rest at some point, especially with the chainmail putting an extra strain on my muscles. And the group's cook agreed and wanted a good chair as well.
We found a page showing a diagram of what the owner called "Talorgen's Chair" and
twilightbanana sketched his own version to scale of what he wanted. I trusted his judgement in the matter but he insisted making his first so any mistakes would be made while working on the cook's chair, and not on the captain's chair. We drew the lines on a sheet of multiplex wood, sawed the bits out, fiddled and fit, and finally got around to drilling holes in the back rest. This will make the chair a little less heavy and serves as decoration as well.
We used a woodrasp to round the edges of the top of the headrest (so one can stand with his arms leaning on it):
Finally, after a layer of woodstain on each side, a made-to-measure poly-urethane cushion (handsewn in there), and extra woodstaining for the logo we ended up with a pretty handsome, completely dis-assemble-able chair:
Strictly speaking, this is not costume, so I'm skipping through this really fast. If you would like to know more, there's an entry on my blog that will tell you more.
Please note I also made the rug that is on the floor there. It's just the same size as the plastic tarp that will protect it from moisture underneath, and it's made from upholstery fabric that was donated to me. It will be secured to the ground along with the tarp.
We had an Anarquendor Picknick a few weeks back, right after I posted about the overcoat. I got to test-drive the gambeson-chainmail-overcoat combination in warm, humid weather. We also practiced some sports, and soon enough I found out that the padded gambeson was slightly too warm.
Instead of hanging my head in shame, I took this as an excellent excuse to make another costume!
Once upon a time, in the year of 2006, I went to Drachenfest with the Yoshida. As a gift to the avatar, I sewed a sleeveless coat with leaves. It was integrated into her costume, which looks like this:
© Drachenfest, 2010
I decided I wanted to make something similar for myself. These are the fabrics I pulled from the cupboard:
Initially, I had decided to take the cream lace and ribbon with the green linen, but it was too cold. So I went looking for a warm colour to add to the mix. A quilter friend of mine says "Every quilt should have a red". The brown in this picture is "my red" -- even though its mostly brown, there's enough red in it to lift the colour scheme back into a warmer mix. Try looking at just the bottom half of the picture by blocking the brown with your hand. It's a much colder colour scheme!
I copied my basic block pattern and added a "skirt" of 125 cm at the waistline. Now I'm tall, but it just fit on the fabric, as long as I made sure the pattern pieces met in the middle. This way the skirt parts could be as long and as wide as they will go. The center front is set to the fold, and center back isn't as it's not a straight line (we have a "dart" at the center back waist).
I put center-front on the fold only to slice the panel open again. I need to move in this! Using bias-tape as a facing, I sewed it around the slit before even serging the edges of my panels.
The front neckline gets a slit too, or else my head won't fit through! I face it with a rectangle of linen, awaiting the collar.
The side-front seam gets pinned and sewn, and then the side-back panels are attached to center-back panels as well. This is as far as I'll take construction before the appliqué! If the entire robe is already assembled, it will be much harder to apply the appliqué because I'll have a whole coat to man-handle in stead of just two panels of a coat.
Time for the appliqué! In the avatar's coat, I had used simple leaves, but I find this ivy leaf on Google Images. It's not perfectly mirrored and it has a simple enough shape that stitching around the edges shouldn't prove too difficult. The image is large enough for a single A4 sheet of paper which is an excellent size.
I trace the leaves (both regular and mirrored) onto Wonder Under (Vliesofix in Dutch). This is a fabric-glue-and-paper that can be used to glue two layers of fabric together and is often used for appliqué and also in corsetmaking.
By using a hot iron, the paper shapes can be glued to the fabric. Once everything cools down and the glue settles, you remove the paper and glue the two fabrics together.
Before I remove the paper, I cut out the leaves with my second-best pair of scissors. There's no need to waste a € 25,- pair of scissors on a mis-cut on paper, right?
Then I decide on thread colours. I could do things with shading, but I settle on the closest match anyway.
One of the two back panels (center-back seam is not sewn yet!) on the table. The cut leaves form potato chips until I glue them down. Here's where I check placement.
I already noticed at this point that the panels are too long, so I leave some room for the hem. It's a shame to have half a leaf falling off the bottom of the coat, right?
I admit it: there's no shame in having a secondary sewing machine. NoKey's old Singer Concerto is just so much better at the satin-stitch (or any zig-zag, for that matter) than my picky and shiny Pfaff Performance. After the first leaf on the Pfaff I clear the atelier of my mess (I'm not the only one doing last-minute sewing), set up the Singer in the living room, and satin-stitch the leaves on one by one. It's so addictive that I find myself sewing at half past eleven on a work night...
There's twelve of the larger leaves on the bottom part of the robe -- three for each quarter (a quarter being side-front or side-back -- even though center front has never been opened). For the top half from the waist up, I want a smaller version of the leaves. Yes, I am addicted.
I decide that since I'm an archer, my left side is more often in front than the right, and I want my robe to reflect this. If I stand ready for archery and I'm aiming at you, you will look onto my left side, right onto my left hip (no, I'm not that tall). I want this side to have extra leaves. Call it "my strong side".
I set up the satin stitch to be slightly narrower for these smaller leaves.
Once all the leaves are stitched on, I sew the remaining panels together, starting with center back as it will need a facing for the back slit. I attach the bias tape to the right side, then sew the panels together, and press the seam open before stitching the bias tape down on the inside.
Impromptu making of facing. Just trace the neckline + shoulders and measure some 7 cm around... at times like these I don't make a big fuss.
The whole reason I need a back facing is because I want to add a label and don't want to see the stitching on the outside. This is my old company's label...
Time for the collar. This collar is four layers of linen, stitched, pressed, turned, pressed and then it gets an extra satin stitch on the Singer. Just because it will be pretty.
You might wonder why I'm such a big fan of mandarin collars?
Well, for one, they look impressive (and, some say, "Romulan"). Secondly, they help in me keeping my bearing, keep my back straight. You'll feel a high collar when your chin starts to droop. So not only does the collar look impressive, it also helps me stay upright and be impressive by my posture.
I add armscye facing. I'm really running out of this brown bias tape at last.
Because of the "left is my front side" I add a facing on the right side seam for lacing. Anyone I'm trying to shoot will only see the coat with the leaves (right-hand picture). My men behind me get to see the lacing. I sew the facing strip to the right side, and press the seam open before folding it inside. It makes for a more crisp finish.
Checking to see if my laces will be long enough for the number of eyelets I intend to put in. Looks like this will work!
The two-part eyelets can be set by my grommet setter. I love that thing to death...
Finished lacing (right side of the garment). I always add a little something to my lace ends. I could have used aglets, but these were the last two wood beads of their kind and they very nearly match the red-brown suedine leaves.
The hem is pinned and pressed. As you can see, it fits the leaves nicely (that's a stroke of luck!) but because the hem overlaps the back of the appliqué leaves, I decide to hand-stitch the hem down. If I had done it all by machine, I'd have a stitching line over the top of my appliqué. That is one of the downsides (if you want to call it that) of first doing the appliqué and then assembling the garment. Personally, I don't mind handstitching and I'm getting pretty fast at that herringbone stitch I love.
Final steps: a satin stitch down the hem, and around the slits. The Singer works so hard it starts to overheat! I let it cool down and once it's colder the nasty whine has disappeared.
Well, that was a first.
As you can see, I really used up a lot of thread for this project. Most of that is thanks to the satin stitch. Considering I bought three spools of thread, this is a fair trade. My thread boxes are too full, and I need to lose some colours, but I'll settle for an even trade!
Well, no project is truly done until the garment is modeled:
I'm not completely satisfied with the fit of the thing. I have a really high waistline (nearly underbust!) that is small. You can see how the garment is too loose at this point, but wearing a belt will help a bit. Larpers are known for wearing belts and it would not look amiss on this robe.
Something I forgot to do was fold out a centimeter at the armscye to make it tighter around the body. You don't need to do this when you're planning to attach a sleeve, but if it's a sleeveless garment you really do, as you can see in the middle picture (same with lowering the neckline, front or back).
In my defense, if you scroll back up to the first picture of the fabrics, you'll see I have a lace mesh ready for the project as well as a bit of trim / braid.
Truth is, I really couldn't see how to integrate these with the red/brown leaves! The trim was just a short bit, not even enough to do the entire hem with. Once I decided to not use the trim, it would have been weird to include the lace mesh fabric for sleevelets.
So the project changed halfway through but the pattern couldn't be adjusted any more. I guess that, since this is just a garment for the warm afternoons to cool down in, and really is my breakfast robe, it's ok to have a little bit of bra showing at the armscye. If need be, I can still make a shirt to wear underneath the robe. Downside to this plan is a) my schedule (T-minus 12 days to Drachenfest and counting) and b) the fact that it's a polyester suedine that should not come near any armpits for any duration of time.
Oooh, yes, and look at the pretty pince-nez I have! I bought it on e-bay and let the optician add my perscription glasses. This way, I can see the enemy coming!
(Please, I don't know what's going on in the back there, I think it's just hanging wonky because I didn't pull it down far enough)
I still have to make myself a pair of pants or two, but I guess that's not really very interesting to document, unless you insist?
We drive off to Drachenfest on Monday the 25th, so you'll have to be patient for a while to see the action-photos... but I promise to return with them as soon as I get them.
It's been quite a journey so far, 146 photos in the set, 7 dressdiary entries in the community, so many comments, and helpful tips! Thank you all for reading and cheering me on! And to keep you hooked & tuned in: I have preliminary plans for a really elaborate dwarven costume as well, so stay tuned and keep stitching!
Cross posted to
dressdiaries
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-07-13 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-13 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-14 07:04 am (UTC)As you would know from previous events at Drachenfest, there are womans with less fabric than this garment. So that little bit of bra you see would be no problem at all ^_^.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-14 07:23 am (UTC)