Planning for the next week

With a note from G that said we were to do our pockets out of Silesia, which is available in the university haberdashery store, I will be concentrating on finishing all my pocket and commence with making up my trousers.  I will continue doing my waistcoat in my spare time.  We do need to be shown how to construct a jetted pocket as we need these for our jackets, and we need to figure out the finishings for the trouser waistband and hems.

Reflection on the week

This week has been challenging: sleeves, checks, lack of time in university...

I have always wanted to conquer checks, and this is certainly going to be a victory if I complete this to any satisfaction.  I have learnt that how you put your tacking in has a big effect on how well your fabric stays put, or not, depending on whether you are sewing with two pieces on a straight grain, with one straight and one bias, or with both on the bias.  With the wool, it is a very malleable fabric with a good amount of natural stretch and can stay put in one place and not ¼ “ down the line. 

As far s the sleeves go, this was an interesting one.  I have drafted and made sleeves before but never to fit into such a precisely structured garment.  I struggled with the ‘easing in’ as I mentioned in my blog.  I think this is something I need to discuss with G at a later date.

What with G being an international contact in the university as well as our (only) tailoring tutor, we knew from the beginning that some days would be completely impossible to have as teaching days.  However, we hadn’t factored in a late Easter weekend, a Royal Wedding, and the May Day bank holiday all converging on us at once.  This has been a source of slight unease, but life sometimes throws these things at you and you just have to get on with what you have.

Halfway through the week G told us that we should use (and probably prefer) Silesia to do our pockets, so that is being done.  I like working with Silesia – as a pure cotton fabric it doesn’t have any nasty habits beyond fraying.

woe is me...

So today, I had a meltdown.  Several, in fact.  And all over these blessed little checks. 

It has been a while (in my brain, which doesn't take long at all) since we had the demonstration about how to match checks through pockets on waistcoats.  Approximately 7 months, actually, so, this time my brain had a slight excuse.  But thinking in 3D is something that I can do, usually, so I am not sure why today was quite such a disaster.  But it was, and then, at about 3.45pm, I managed to accost my tutor and he showed me how to do it, which was slowly where I was headed, but upside-down to how I had it.  It is awe-inspiring and demoralizing at the same time how people can make things look easy.  I know; people have said that about me when I fix machinery that they have battled with for ages, in 10 minutes.

Maybe I should become a mechanic...I will finish this suit first, however.  I will not let it beat me.

5 days in one

Today is the only day this week we can have a tutor at our beck and call, so we made use of it.  We have had little demonstrations in: what needs to be done now that we have had a fitting; how to do trouser side-seam pockets; and a crash bang whizz through Everything that can be done now, without the lining.  

Apparently, we are not using the lining fabric for pockets (whoop!), so we can get quite a bit more done in the time before it appears.

However, of that 'quite a bit more', we have been warned that there is still a Huge Amount to do, and that we probably don't quite grasp how much Time it will take us to complete it all.  We have 20 days until hand-in, including a 4 day weekend, which, tied in with our tutor's timetable, we have 6 days, starting tomorrow in which we are Totally On Our Own.  This is not scary so much as the blind leading the blind.  We know we are perfectly capable of using tailoring techniques and doing this really well*, it is just that we have never done any of it before, Ever.

Hey ho! Where's the fun in not having a challenge!

Garibaldi, anyone?

_________

*even, maybe, getting all those checks matched up?

New things!

I always knew that I would learn new and interesting things during my time at university – that is why people learn: to discover things that are amazing, or intriguing, or thought-provoking – and tailoring has been one of those things.  I had always admired men in suits; smart, slick, dignified, and I, maybe particularly coming from a military family, have thought that a man in uniform is one of the ultimate shows of elegance and decorum.  But I had never thought I could pull myself away from the beauty of women’s historical costume in all its diversity and inventiveness.  The main factor about tailoring is, however, that, for men, the basics of a jacket and trousers can be seen throughout a very large proportion of history.  Through this, the creation of jackets and trousers for men has been tried, altered, refined and tried again, all the way to the 1930’s.   I don’t say to the modern day because, though people are still trying out ideas and, potentially, moving forwards, I believe the craftsmanship and quality of the tailored suit reached its height in the 1930’s.

SO! With our previous unit, I was shown how to draft and use tailoring patterns, how use fabric in a different way, how to put a tailored garment together, how to do pockets.  

This time, I have learnt some new terms: ‘Ziggering’ namely securing the edges of the fabric by running a zigzag stitch all the way around them.  'The Cabbage' being the fabric that is left over from cutting out the garment.

I have learnt how to baste multiple layers together – last time we did just 2, this time, we have 4, each of which is done individually.

And I have had the new experience of tacking, by hand, an entire garment together.  Gulp.  There is only one seam that is machine stitched, and that is the centre back of the jacket.  Every. Single. Other seam is sewn by hand and then the seam allowance is pushed to one side and that, too is tacked down by hand...

How to conduct a tailoring fitting, too, is very different to how one might do a dressmaking or a costume fitting.

Here's too questing minds, generous tutors and more information than we can ever dream of

Sleeves

Well, here we are, back after the Easter break with three days of class until the next 4 day weekend bars us from studio and tutor alike once more.

Having had our fittings during the break, we have now to adjust the suits as necessary and to finish them.   One small problem we have at the moment is lining fabric that has gone AWOL.  Without the lining we cannot start even doing things like pockets (of which there are two in the trousers, three in the jacket and four in the waistcoat) which need to be done before we can put in facings, and, well, you can’t line something if you don’t have lining!  So, I am down to moving sleeve settings and spreading out my seam allowance.

I had some trouble putting my sleeve in, in the first place.  Having been instructed to allow for some ease in the upper sleeve drafting, I was finding it almost impossible to squeeze in even the minimum suggested.  There is, apparently, nothing straightforwardly easy about easing!  Maybe it comes with practice, though, as many things similar to this do.

So, I had pinned the sleeve in place, adjusting the seam on both the sleeve itself and also at the join between the sleeve and the jacket, pulling it over a little, into the body.  The challenge here, now, is to cut and place the top-fabric sleeves well enough.

It’s not quite ‘wearing my heart on my shirt sleeves’, but ‘wearing my checks on my jacket sleeves’ has equal possibilities for becoming a moralistic saying...

Reflection on the holidays

I feel I have made up my lost time – having the fittings late enough that all three of us could have them at the same time was a real bonus, and gave me that time to do everything that the others had already done.  The holiday taking me back to my parents home, away from university digs and the people in my class made for a very different working atmosphere, in both good and bad ways, and allowed me to catch up in an environment free of comparison to other people’s work, though I was working almost blind, but I had my notes and I phoned A a couple of times, just to check I was actually doing it correctly. 

From the time of the fitting, we were all on an even keel, with a steady following wind.  We knew there would be a few rocks under the surface, but we also knew that land was up ahead, and there was a chance of an albatross...

                           

Planning for the first week back

I need to establish a working rhythm as soon as I get back.  G has made no secret of the fact that making a three-piece suit takes time, patience and a lot of hard work – doubly so when if it is your first suit.  So I will aim to do at least a little bit of work every day, try and stay on top of the practical side, and hope for the best on the blog side. 

In as far as what work should be accomplished in the first week: taking the suit apart, re-adjusting patterns, moving tack lines and see which garment G recommends we start with...

In which a fitting takes place...

A mountain lies ahead...

The car pulled up next into the shade of a lime tree, a blessing after the unusually hot sun for mid-April.  The weather hadn’t quite come out of nowhere, but it was sufficiently warmer than any day had been for months that the young lady in the passenger seat – pale and tired – could feel the sun’s fingers on her skin start to burn her cheeks.  Two and a half hours earlier, as she had set off, it had been sunny, but still cool, and she was still feeling the cleanliness of having swum half a mile in the cool of dawn.  As they had sped east, she fell asleep to the lulling voice on the radio, finally resting after a sleepless night. 

On arrival at the building, the cool interior was inviting despite the austerity, though once inside, the echoes of people singing, moving, created a quite cacophony of disorientating noise.  Arriving at a wall with a window in, the girl approached cautiously, determined not to stutter. 

The chap behind the counter smiled encouragingly and said ‘Hello!’

‘Hi, I’m here to meet A.D.?’

‘Ooo kay, I haven’t seen her yet today, but that doens’t mean she isn’t here, I’ll give her a call...Ah ha! You are in, may I send your visitor through?  Thank you.’ Turning to me, ‘please sign in.’

She signed in and pushed through the turnstile into a foyer with seats in.  Seating herself here, she looked around at blank walls, a disappearing staircase, several doors and a digital advertisement screen.  A few people floated through, passing from doorway to stair or vice versa.   

Eventually, through a door behind me a lady in black whisked through and said, ‘do you want to come through here?’

‘A?’

‘Yes, you haven’t been here before have you?’

‘No.’

‘Come on in!’

Into a corridor and in through the first door into a high-ceilinged room that held an explosion of colour.  A couple of rails held a few undergarments and costumes; a dress stand with a blue regency gown on stood in the corner; boxes of material were stacked under an enormous table in the middle of the left-hand wall, a rainbow rack of thread spools ranged along the back; a shelf held cartoon-style headdress-heads of animals; a book shelf over flowed with tomes next to a fitting area and mirror; industrial machines lined the right-hand wall and, above that, box after box above box filled with patterns, shoes, accessories and small props filled the wall right up to the ceiling.  Suspended above the large table were two items: a box of chocolates and a box for a champagne bottle.  Attached the chocolate was a note saying ‘ bad gift idea’, and on the champagne was ‘good gift idea’. 

The girl crept in behind A’s bustling motion, her suit-bag clutched in one hand, handbag pressed against her other side.  A offered  to get her a drink, and, quietly, the heat from outside still glowing on her cheeks, the girl asked for a glass of water and A avidly filled two glasses and joined her.

Knowing it was still a bit early for the actors to arrive, A continued bustling around looking at designs, and chattering about the performances that were coming up.  The school puts on about twenty-five productions a year; some of these were small, student-devised pieces, some were whole-year-group efforts with casts of forty-five, and everything else in the middle.  The three suits that the girl and her two fellow students were being asked to make were destined for their costume store, giving them something for a tall actor, a shorter but stockier actor and a small-all-over actor. 

Right on time, before the others had arrived, the girl’s actor, J, the tall one, arrived, smiling and genial; a willing model.  The girl shook hands with him, introducing herself to him in an attempt to try and calm her nerves, terrified that she would trip over her own feet or simply throw up. 

‘Shall we get started then?’ said A, still moving here and there sorting out other things. 

The girl undid the suit bag and handed the trousers to J, hoping her hands weren’t shaking to visibly, and explained how they were open at the back rather than the front.  Organising herself while J gingerly pulled on the green tweed, it became obvious that they were a snug fit around his dancer-muscled legs, but they went on and actually the girl was very pleased with how they fit around the waist.  The top area of the legs, however, that would have to be changed if he was to move and dance in them with any kind of ease.  She pinned on the braces and tucked in the seam allowance, turned up the hem, pinning them at the back to the level of his heel.

‘Is that ok to wear, apart from the top?’

‘Yeah,’ J looked at himself in the mirror, posing slightly.  ‘They’re good.  Though as you say, I wouldn’t want to dance in them just at the moment.’ He flexed his legs in a demi plié in fourth position, not feeling safe to do a full plié.

He smiled and she helped him into the waistcoat, which fit him beautifully.  His glance in the mirror was more impressed now – maybe green tweed appeals, the girl thought.

One of the girl’s friends turns up and the girl feels a little better, though still a little at a loss.

A curiosity caught the girl’s eye.  Across his back, the lines of the material’s pattern, that she has spent much time sitting precisely straight on the paper pattern, curved up slightly over his left shoulder.

‘Are you left-handed?’ She asked, intrigued.

‘Yes,’ he replied, surprised, ‘I am.  Why?’

‘Your left shoulder has more muscle on it, it has been used more than your right.’

‘Oh!  I carry my bag on my right, though.’

‘That has probably pulled it down slightly accentuated your left then.’

A finds this very funny and teases J about it. 

In the heat of the room, J asks if he can take the jacket off now, and the girl assists him after taking some photos, hoping they come out all right as her hands are still shaking.

Both of the others were now there and as J returned into his own clothes, two other actors arrived for them. 

The girl thanked J.  He smiled and said ‘no problem,’ and left.  The girl sat down gratefully on a chair and stayed to give her opinion on her friends’ fittings, feeling more confident in a chair and not the one surveying her own work any more.  She hadn’t fallen over and she hadn’t thrown up. 

Thanking A at the end, the three girls departed into the sunshine in quest of a place to have a drink and a chat. The streets were bustling, traffic of both automotive and human sorts, the heat seeping from the stone and tarmac.  The breeze is warm and it feels like waking from a dream, the past hour something that could have happened, or could have not, save for the dying butterflies in the girl's stomach.

Thinking back on her own fitting, the girl is unhappy with herself, but striving to counteract her negative thoughts with the fact that there was still work to be done and space for improvement.  One mountain surmounted.  The range remains, some traversed, the rest still to come.

Climbing from the car in the fading heat of the day after sitting through the traffic heading west, she was more than tired, eager to be on her own and away from the noise of the city. 

In the sitting room, her cat curled up wit h her, comforting and warm, not caring that her owner was trying to become a tailor despite her doubts. What did cats care for tailoring besides giving them a comfortable lap to sit on.  I must think like a cat for a while, thought the girl.  Let me be still, in a warm place and everything else is not needed or important for a few hours...

Reflection on the fitting

I found the experience quite stressful.  Going into a strange place, meeting new people on my own, having to conduct a task that I had only seen done, and that only once, and having to be totally professionally calm and automatic about it are all things, especially when mixed up, that are, frankly, terrifying to me.  Part of my anxiety came from how fast everything had moved once I returned from work experience: having less than a normal 5-day week and less tutor-contact time than I had initially expected, all combined together with stepping into the unknown.  However, I felt that I was able to keep myself collected enough that my actor was not perturbed by my nervousness.  It was also a very hot day, and so I made sure I reassured my actor that if he felt to warm with an entire three-piece, 100% wool suit on, he was to say immediately.

As far as the fit and fitting of the garments, the length for all of them was just right.  I knew that there was a high chance of ambiguity over the fit at the hip and waist as this was where we had taken an executive decision to alter the measurements we had been supplied with. 

Trousers:

They did fit at the waist, high-waisted as they were, sitting nicely at the base of his ribs.  The waist itself was fine, but as the trousers went over his hips and down his thighs, they were rather tight.  This is a note for the future: When fitting dancers, expect slightly unusual measurements as they are more muscular in some areas than you would find on someone of the same height and chest measurement.

Waistcoat:

Slightly snug around the chest, but this can be let out of the side seams.  The sit across the shoulders was good and shaped well.

Jacket:

The sleeve I had had some problems with in drafting, so I was pleased with the amount of accuracy I did have, and not unhappy that I had to move it slightly.  Again, it was slightly too snug around the chest, so I will need to let it out at the side seams.

Overall, I felt that it was mostly a success, and hopefully next time I have to do a tailoring fitting I will not be quite so nervous.

It's all in the preperation...

Having arrived home for the Easter holidays with all of my tailoring equipment and fabric, I had to set myself up to continue the hard graft until a) I knew when my fitting would be (which was a minimum of 4 days away), and b) make sure I was completely ready for a fitting whether it was in 4 days or 14.

I still had to: sew up all the darts in the jacket and waistcoat; piece together all three garments by tacking them along the seams and then securing the seams by tacking down the seam allowance – all by hand; make a calico mock-up sleeve for the jacket and a back for the waistcoat (we didn’t have our lining yet).

In other preparation for going to London, I looked over my notes from the fitting I had sat in on where G was helping a 3^rd year with a suit she was making, and organise what order I was to fit each garment with all the different elements that each need.

On Creativity

On Creativity...

I think people should find magic in the work they do everyday.  If they can’t find something even slightly wonderful or miraculous or exciting in their job, they need to re-evaluate what they are doing and what they consider important.  Having a chronic condition makes you appreciate very small things – gives you the excuse to spend the time a child would in exploring the world around you, even if that only extends to the four walls of your room and the view from your window.  If you can’t get up and go out, let your imagination go the distance. 

Being creative, whether that be actually creating something (cakes, paintings, writing, music, costume) or just trying something new (giving interesting, individual feedback to students’ work, taking a new path to the office, leaving a doodle on a friend’s notepad) doesn’t have to be difficult or even very original, but it is sourced from the other side of the brain to the one that is used for calculating, decision making, ‘rational thought’, and EVERYONE should do something creative everyday.

Since I am on a creative university course, at a university that only does art-related, creative courses, I am very lucky to be able to say that I get to be creative for the majority of everyday.  When I became ill in 2002, the only part of my brain that functioned properly was the right side, the creative, irrational, impulsive side.  Now, I have quite a bit of my left-side working again, though by no means all of it, and I have very little short-term memory, which makes things...interesting, but it is the right side of my brain that is feeding my career path. Where I will end up, I still don’t know, but I have dreams...

Tricky Pieces

Well, when I heard that I was getting checked material, I had a small quibble-moment, but I do enjoy a challenge like this.  

When we did our previous tailoring unit making waistcoats, our tailoring tutor, G, said that we were very welcome to used checked material, but that we had to be prepared to have a few hiccups.  Because at that point all I wanted was to produce a good, well constructed garment, I went for the safer option of a block-coloured wool.  And I was very happy with the results!  BUT, this meant that coming into this unit, and being presented with a green tweed bolt, my knees shook.*

In matching the fabric I had an immediate problem: that the way in which the fabric had been woven and folded meant that I couldn't line up the two layers without wasting a lot of the fabric.  So, under the guidance of G, I was instructed to pin on my pattern pieces, carefully choosing where I wanted the strong red stripe to fall vertically as well as horizontally, then cut out the TOP LAYER ONLY.  Then I had to move each piece over by about half an inch** and re-match the lines to cut out the bottom layer...

I fell into a zone of concentration; I had started cutting out when it was still in lunchtime and therefore quieter in the studios.  By the time I looked up from my work the first years had returned and were clamoring on the edges of the (3) tables I was taking up, wanting the space for their class.

At this point in time I am not too stressed about the whole thing; all the hand tacking is going to my head and making me rather placid - a good thing to note for up and coming units: if you get too stressed Do Some Hand Sewing!

______

*It is not that I have never worked with even stripes before; the last university project we were studying Candide by Voltaire, making 18th century costumes and I ended up with a black silk frock coat with silver braiding and matching breeches, but for that I applied the stripes by hand so was not trying to match them right from the outset.

** Yes, we still work in the old imperial scales in this profession.  We had a modified version for the waistcoat when all 43 makers were learning at once that used the metric scales, but all the original books and patterns are still printed in inches

Picture: http://villagedraper.com/

First Week Reflections

Phew! What a mammoth five days!  Being away doing work experience wasn’t the easiest, knowing that I was missing time with A and N as a group and, of course, missing teaching sessions and having the chance to ask as many questions as I wanted, as soon as they presented themselves.  Drawing blocks is not a problem area for me; I don’t always get them right the first time – I think you would be hard-pressed to find a professional maker who got every single block they drew absolutely perfect first time – but I enjoy the process of resolution: follow some convoluted, seemingly random instructions and produce a line drawing that resembles a (geometric) figure shape, and then have some fun in moving them around.  Voila! 

So, I got back a week and a half into the project with three patterns that I hopped were ok, but was not too hopeful as I was not 100% sure of the validity of the measurements I had been given.  Having A and N that much further ahead of me was both an extra help to push on and get to the same level as they were, and also very useful as I was asking all the same questions that they had come up against, and now had the answers too.  It was unfortunate that our tutor was not able to spend very much of the first 2 (out of 4) days we had left before the Easter holidays, but he graciously stopped by on his way through from one meeting to the next every so often when we hurled 1,000,000 questions at him.  I think this has made us work closer as a group – though if we had been many more than 3, this wouldn’t have been so effective –and become more independent.  Each of us had a different sort of fabric to work with and A has a slightly different design to N and me, too, so we are all doing our own thing, together.

 

We also all have a good attitude towards tea and biscuits...

And so it begins...

Well, today was the first day (in university) of tackling my Self Directed Project (SDP).  I have chosen to undertake a project in tailoring, working alongside the Arts Educational College in Chiswick, London.  They have asked for 3 three-piece suits from around the turn of the nineteenth century; the advert illustration I am working from dates from 1898.

Having spent the first week and a half of teaching time away on work experience, I have some catching up to do!  I had drafted the basic blocks for each of the waistcoat, jacket and trousers but waited for the green light that they were actually correct to start altering them to the design.

I had some anomalies with the measurements I had been given, but I ironed them out and have now got an, almost, satisfactory set of patterns from which to work.  I say almost, because I still have some reservations of whether my trouser block is correctly drawn...but I need to wait until after a nights sleep and a fresh brain to face that...

So until tomorrow, gütten nacht