Planning for the next week

Over the weekend we are to prepare the hem of the jacket and attach the side and shoulder seams, which is very exciting – I really enjoy seeing a garment properly come together.  With tailoring, for the ease of working on small areas on great detail, much of the work is done with each of the pieces of a garment separate from the rest, only putting them together when everything that can be done to that piece has been done.  This makes it easier to work on the more fiddly bits, keeping the pieces flatter for longer, and means that once you have done all the preparation work, it doesn’t take too long to put the whole thing together into a recognisable assembly.  The jacket in particular has been a good deal of working on the separate areas before adding them to whole.

For next week, I need to finish my blog entries, write an evaluation of the whole project and make sure my trousers and waistcoat are completely finished.  The jacket, as agreed in the learning agreement, will not have to be finished.  After hand in, we will carry on work on it so that we can ship them off to ArtsEd.

Planning for the next week

Jackets!

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 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...

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