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...

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.