Breathe - Hunters Cloaks

Since working on the second cloak last I'd managed to dye, construction the cloaks shape and complete half of its textile work. I was really pleased with its progressed and made me really positive for the days session. First of all I continued to finish off patch working the cloak and once finished pinned it to a mannequin with the base attached. My next task was to work out how to attach it to the base costume as in the design there was no obvious neck ties etc to be interpreted. As Kate, the designer, was around to consult I decided that the best method would be to use poppers as a temporary solution. Once this was done I began to consider the best was to interpret the netting which is draped over the arm and visible at the front of the cloak. To do this I started to play around draping net over the shoulders and around the front of the cloak. This had a really nice organic charm to it; wild, free and linking to fishing/ the sea. 

Once I'd secured it all in place I began to make the shoulder pads visible on the design. It looked like a big furry pad resting on the shoulder, however there was a sample in the hunter folder of a much more textural piece; net with lots of short tied on lace/ribbon/string/rope. Taking this sample I began to make my own. They looked a little bit too flat when placed upon the should so made a small pad for it to rest on and be attached to. It was then worked into a little for a more aged/ distressed appearance. Like the other cloak I attached elastic arm bands for secure movement and then draped the net over and stitched it in place; thus realising the design. 

I was pretty pleased with the end result of the second cloak. After the previous cloak I was much more prepared for making this one; knowing what things to avoid when stitching the base cloak and to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Out of the two, its definitely been my favourite to construct. 

Costume Store - Victorian Blouse

This week is the second week we've had to work on the blouse (2 weeks until hand-in). I thought I'd had everything under control with the construction of the blouse so far, and decided to work on it up until a point I'd need to consult our tutor, Dexter, with the next construction stages. However, at the beginning of the week he had an unfortunate accident and was signed off due to an injure. I was really worry about the way in which the project would now develop without assigned teaching support. Instead of panic I decided to seek help from other tutors on our course to begin the next stages of assembling the blouse.

The next stage in constructing the blouse was the pleated front bib/yoke. At first glance it seemed simple enough, a piece of pleated silk organza cut in the appropriate shape and attach to the front pieces of the blouse.  Despite the appearance of its simplicity this wasn't the case. Dexter had left us with instructions of how the pleats were to be formed in order to form crisp, neat pleats, important due to it being the focal point of the blouse. The instructions left me pretty confused. After trying out a combination of folding and pinning solutions I accepted defeat and sought the help of another tutor. Together we managed to work out the pleats fold combination. 

After working out the fold combination I tacked down the main line I needed to follow when machine sewing the folds. Despite being aware of what I was doing I still found it pretty difficult to work with the silk organza. Before even beginning working with it I'd starched it 4 times to stiffen it and give it more control. Although this did help the organza proved very difficult to work when sewing on the machine and I didn't manage to get all the pleats perfectly even. Undoing the stitching for something like this isn't really possible to do without damaging the organza, and because we'd ran out of money for the costume project I excepted the outcome and will take this experience into consideration when it comes to working with fabric like this again.

After pleating the organza the next task was cutting out the bib/ yoke detail piece for the front of the blouse. I laid the patten on top of the organza and to my horror found that I didn't actually have enough fabric to cut the whole pattern out. Instead of panicking I took a moment to consider the situation and how to approach it next. Placing the pattern piece as tightly backed at I could, I drew around them to see how much wastage was left. Luckily there was just enough waste pleated organza to perfectly attach to the section of the bib/ yoke missing. Once happy I then cut out the bib/ yoke and joined on the separate piece of pleating to it. You could never tell that this was the case as it produced a smooth finish. This is the result...

 

Breathe - Hunters Cloaks

Since the last session of Breathe I'd made a good process on my cloak. After relentlessly cutting shapes of fabric, net, fur, leather and suede I had managed to cover the cloak in a way which resembled the design but as my own interpretation.  The next this I had to tackle was the fastenings and shape. 

In the design the character is swooping the cloak upwards, revealing the inside slightly. When looking at this feature and my creation so far it looked to heavy and drowning for the wearer to be able to do this. So I decided first of all to slash into one side to create a slightly slanted shape for ease of moveability and to lighten it. The next thing to consider was the ways in which the wearer would control the cape. Previously as a group, me, Kim and Naomi had discussed that each cloak would have a series of elasticated arm bands. This way the wearer would have complete control of its movements and would also create extra security of staying fastened. 

As the in the design the cloak is quite heavy looking and more closed over than the others I decided that eyelets / tie rope would be a nice way to finish it and  for it to be fastened. This is the result...

The only thing left that I want to do with it is to stitch down some of the fabric sections more and to add some barnacles which were previously made in the Breathe Club sessions.

This wasn't the only Breathe work I managed to produce this week. For this part of the unit it had be stated as a requirement that we needed to produce a bod of work for assessment. A lot of us in the group were very worried and distressed about the content/ extent of the 'body of work'. As a result had individual tutorial with our tutors to come to an understanding of what we needed to produce for assessment. It had been decided that along side this cloak I'd need to make a second smaller cloak which another girl was meant to make but hadn't had the time. This is the design...

From the design I could see that this cloak was a lot smaller in length and in width; only going half way across the back. After establishing this I drew up a pattern, similar to the last one but half the size,cut it out of fabrics available, machine stitched it together and then took it to the dye room to dye it the same rusty colours as the other cloaks.  Once dried I began work on it straight away. Having done it previously I was fully aware of how lengthy it could be to made such a patch work style cloak. However this time I came up with a systematic/ time efficiently cutting method for the patches in order to use my time left effectively. 

This is the result at the end of the first day... 

Costume Store - Victorian Blouse

On Thursday my fabric arrived at uni from the supplier just in time for my next costume store working day on Friday. I was a little worried that I'd be majorly behind on Friday as the vast majority of the class had recieved their fabric on Wednesday meaning they could have cut out, tacked and started on their blouses by now. However on Friday I was quite surprised, and mildly pleased, that half the class were in my situation and the other half had barely got anywhere with drafting their pattern. Now in a more positive mind set I began to prepare to myself for tackling the blouse.

My fabric, previously mentioned, was silk cotton (bleached agre)  in neutral soft colours of cream, brown etc. It seemed a really unusual choice of fabric for a blouse due to its strange texture and thickness. It reminded me of parchment paper and the natural weft of the fabric produced a pattern lightly wall paper like. It was very different to everyone else's floral/plain/thin striped fabric, which I quite liked. After ironing my fabric, folding it to the salvage and pinning down my pattern pieces, I set to work cutting out the sections of my blouse.This how I started off...

Whilst the fabric was folded salvage-to-salvage pin the pattern pieces down. Draw on the pattern require of the separate pieces and add on a 2.5cm seam allowance on each one.

Sew up all the darts; 4 on the back piece and the 2 on each of the front pieces. After this is done press the darts flat; darts on the back being pressed towards the center back and the darts on the front pieces being pressed towards the center front. Pressing them in these directions will help them to stay flat when worn/ applied to the body.

Now start on the sleeves. Cut along the incision line at the bottom of the sleeve. You'll need to bind this to create as smooth finish/ stop spreading a tear. From the top side sew your binding along the cut you've made making sure when you reach the point to stop the sewing machine, pivot the needle and then sew downwards. Fold the binding, press and top stitch down. On the inside of the sleeve make a small at the top of the incision/binding. This means you can pull the points over each other giving a better finish (flatter...).

Sew the seams together and press open/flat.

At the bottom of the sleeve fold the pleats and pin in place. Next pin the cuff down from one point of the cuff opening to the other, pinning over the pleats. Sew the cuff down and then fold over to top stitch. Top stitch down, press and then top stitch around all the cuff.

At this point I've now managed to construct both sleeves ready for attachment, buttons, embellishment and the darts in the main body of the garment. The next area I need to address is the organza pleated yoke and collar of the blouse which I will begin during the next assisted costume store session in the studio. 

Breathe - Hunters

Today's session was spent continuing the textile work I'd started previously on the hunter cloak. After consulting with Kate any preferences of leather/fur/suede combinations she had for this cloak I set to work experimenting with the resources available.

I found it really difficult to begin with working with the leather/suede combinations chosen when layering they with the more netted, layered, textured layer I'd started previously. The shapes I cut just seemed too smooth, bulky and focused. It resulted in me becoming very frustrated and stressed out, needing to take 5mins out and refocus on what I wanted to achieve. Out of my frustration I ripped some paper near by on the desk. Looking at the shapes I'd made I then took these and played with them, lying them in the cloak when flat on the ground. I inspired me to get looser with how I was treating the fabrics available to me, cutting out rough/jagged sections of fabric to play around with in layers. The result was this...

So far I'm really pleased with the appearance of the cloak due to this combination of layering, colours and fabric. It's resulted in the cloak looking very wild and textural, qualities I wanted to aim to achieve. 

I'm almost half way through layering all over my very large cloak, and despite being pleased with its progress  I still think it looks a little primitive at the moment. Once done I'd like to develop it a little further through breaking it down to give a more sophisticated appearance.  

Breathe - Hunters

After making the base cloak and dying/painting it base colours to work on the next task to tackle was to begin the fabric layer segments. Kate had decided specific leathers and furs she'd like us to work into each design but we were a little lost with how to start approaching the more rough, course layer. 

Luckily Grace approached us with a textile sample she'd made previously. It was a very simple but really effective textile sample of which she'd layered different textured, loosely woven fabric and embroidered together with circle stitches to look like barnacles and keep with the ocean tie to the piece. The end result looked great; really worn, textural and ruggered. We all decided to take this sample on board and try it on a large scale over our cloaks for the more layered/ textural layer.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get started on this until my cloaked had dried from the dye painting I'd done on it so I had to wait to get started on this during the 'Breathe Club' evening on the following Wednesday. As soon as I got started the technique felt very easy, fast and effective for what we were aiming to achieve. I really got into trying out the various layers, distressing some to give it a more worn out, battered look. As if the cloak had been through harsh times/environments. Although embroidery with machines isn't my strongest point it didn't seem to matter for this. The slightly off shapes holding bits in place gave an edge to its detailing; ethic style. I even began to experiment trapping some of the barnacle being made during the workshops in the layers to give its detailing a more 3D appearance. I was quite pleased with the end result for the top layer and the progress its made so far..... 

** Front View

** Back View

** Close Up 

Costume Store - Victorian Blouse

Today we were briefed on the final garment we'd be constructing for costume store; a Victorian blouse. Just like with the shirt there was a possible 3 blouses we'd be working from, and we'd be need to construct them in different sizes to each other. The blouse I'd be required to make was blouse 1.

**View of front of blouse

** Side view of blouse

** Back view of blouse

** Close up of front of blouse; pleated yolk detail

I was then informed that the size I'd be required to construct my blouse in was a size 16 and I'd be using a silk cotton (agra bleached) as the main fabric for the blouse, organza for the pleated detailing and lace for all the trimmings in a mixture of creamy colours. Unfortunately my main fabric hadn't arrived yet so I couldn't actually start the construction of the garment. To start off I did as I had previously done with the other two garments and examined the example garment and the pattern provided. The overall look of the garment was quite structured compared to the other two blouses. The shape is quite fitted due to the use of darts at the waist in the front and back pieces. Even the sleeves were quite fitted to the body (no gatherings etc). Due to the sharpness of the basic shape it doesn't appear too difficult to construct compared to the other two blouses. The main focal and time consuming point will certainly be the pleated detailed yoke/bib at the of the blouse. This will no doubtingly require time, patience and precision in order to achieve perfect symmetry. 

Since I wasn't able to make a start with my blouse I turned my attention back to my breeches. Since my last blog I'd managed to make quite a bit of progress with the construction of them. All I had left to do was to attach the waistband and finish off all the hand sewing needed to conceal any raw edges etc. I'd actually really enjoyed the construction of the breeches. It was a good challenge I think I needed as a costume maker in order to develop my construction/ problem solving skills and confidence in making. The hardest part I found was the flap construction at the beginning. I'd cut too far into the line needed to attach the yoke so found it difficult to get the pointed detailing to sit flat/correctly. I've taken this into account as a learning curve/ experience to remember the next time I'm faced similar construction situation. 

By the end of the session all that is left to do is to sew on the buttons to the breeches...