 |
I poked about the web and found this rather neat suit pattern from Burda: almost what we want. The front is a tad boring but we loved the back detail. Sarah thought that flare over the bum was really neat. |
 |
We also loved this Celtic jacket from Wildly Wonderful Wearables, shown in hand dyed purple and denim. This is a fab pattern and a very pretty design, but still wasn't quite what we wanted, and would take too long to get from the USA for this project... It reminded me a lot of this red one I made from a Vogue pattern. Unfortunately that pattern went off to the USA and never came home... |
 |
So I took inspiration from them all and set to work with Wild Ginger. Well, at least it should FIT! This is the first draft of the pattern on the dummy. It doesn't look like it will meet up the front, but it will. This is stiff paper rather than floppy fabric. There are a couple of style refinements I want to make, but the basic shape is there. It has two part sleeves, and will be faced and fully lined. |
 |
I have now printed off the pattern with seam allowances and am about to make the toile... |
 |
Here's the toile for the
jacket.. I made this from some navy polycotton sheeting, and it
has no facings, so has more 'flop' than the final version will have.
The skirt section is longer than the final version will be, but I thought it best to keep it long so that we can play with the hem shape. There was some discussion about it having a point at the back... The front neck is also quite high to allow us to play with this and make it lower if required. |
| The next task the trousers. Discussion fixed us on straight leg
rather than bootleg cut as this is more flattering on smaller people
when wearing flat shoes. Bootleg cut with shorter legs in flatties
can make the legs look even shorter, and we don't want out lass being
remembered as 'the one with the short legs'!
These pictures tell me that a: the legs are probably too wide and we may want a tapered style rather than a full straight leg, and b: I need the Adjustoform Trouser dress stand! |
 |
 |
The fitting showed that
there wasn't enough ease in the jacket for the amount of movement Sarah
will need to do in the arena, so I've redrafted the pattern with more
ease allowed...
We also played with the hem! And the neckline... The front neckline is to be lowered, the back neckline gets that neat little V shape from the Burda pattern, and the hem was chopped off into a nice big point! I'll recreate this on the second toile and pattern, and then create the hem facing from that. We are also going to try to echo the point on the sleeves, flaring them a bit and adding the point, to echo the hemline... |
|
|
I was right
about the trousers! There were several fit issues as well as the
huge amount of fabric in those straight legged trousers... So a
new tapered leg version has been drafted ready for Round Two on Friday.
And a new toile was made of the jacket. There are a lots of pieces in this jacket!
|
|
|
The new jacket toile was a great deal better. From this I could see that no further fitting issues were involved, and it only remained to make the jacket up. Shaping the hem comes later! |
 |
I trimmed the hem off while Sarah was here, so ensure we got it the right length. It's a little longer than the first toile, to cover the trouser pocket openings... The bit trimmer off made the pattern for cutting the facing, which, in turn, gave us the line for trimming the hem! |
| The new
trouser toile was MUCH better! Not perfect, but getting
there! This one allowed me to see where the fitting issues were
and correct the pattern before cutting the real fabric.
As ever with trousers, there is a final adjustment to make before doing the zip, the lining, and the hem! Linen is particularly prone to settling in a different way from a toile, but a minor waist adjustment will sort that out. The pin in the trousers shows where I need to drop the waist to at the front. |
 |
 |
Here's the final suit!
It needs to have the waist on the trousers adjusted, the zip inserted,
the lining made up and inserted, and the hems fixed. Of course, a
good press with some steam will help, too!
The jacket still needs to have that hem facing stitched in place and properly pressed. I also need to complete the lining and insert that, and sew up the cuffs. Those get faced like the hem. |
 |
Just a little bit of showing
off! The facing edges all have a Hong Kong finish, and the bit at
the point at the back came together very neatly, I thought.
Tomorrow evening the trousers will get their final fitting to fix the hem length, and it will be collected on Tuesday! |
| Well, we were glad we'd built in an extra day for possible 'fidget room'! Final trying on of trousers showed that neither of us was happy with the fit at the front, so I took them apart at the waist, eliminated the front darts and moved the fullness round to the back, removing it at the centre back seam. Let us hope that this will solve the problems. I have redesigned the trousers for the next pair, and we'll see what that looks like when we come to them... | 
|
 |
Putting the lining in a jacket makes a lot of difference to the way it sits on the body, and showed that we needed to nip it in at the waist at the back. The extra ease needed at the shoulders wasn't needed so much at the waist... Sarah is small, and, like me, has a hollow back (part also of the trouser fitting issue), and her back half is a smaller size than her front half at the waist. Because of the godets in the hem of the jacket, it made sense to curve the centre back seam rather than remove two godets, take in two seams and sew the godets back in! I should have gone for a curved back seam all along! |
|
Curving that back seam has given the pointy tail of the jacket an even more perky look. And the Pointy hem is echoed by the pointed back neckline and the pointed cuff. |