What happens when you spend 11 hours in a costume shop?

You can barely see
 the markings 

Epaulette!

You miss daylight completely, or and you get a lot done. I started off the day working as an intern for a
few hours which meant I got to continue on that bodice for The Rover. It now has sleeves and little epaulets attached. It's done for now until the next fitting, then we can add the little tabs to the sleeves. I basically spent a good chunk of time tracing and trying to find a marking tool that would appear on the interfacing fused onto the fabric. I found that you can see yellow tailors chalk really well, but when I ironed it went away so then I proceed to tried like 4 other things, yellow wax pencil, white wax pencil, white tailors chalk and finally just settled on the pink water soluble marker, it was the easiest. I put everything together, the sleeves are out of a very nice white eyelet fabric, It looks very nice with the wine colour.

Bodice with sleeves and epaulettes 

After that was all put together I took a quick break to eat food, that was the only time beside 10:30am that I saw daylight. When I got back I went to work on my project, I was looking over the schedule in the syllabus and was pleasantly surprised when I realised I am already a week ahead of schedule. This week I'm suppose to be working on but the Male mock together, when I'm actually finished and starting on the female. I also was laughing because did his Howard, I'm gonna use the wrong word thing. It say that I should "start switching fabric", it took me a second to figure out what that mean, he means I should start swatching fabric. Oh, Howard.

The only thing I had left to do on the male mock up was just put the sleeves on the coat, and make a collar. That took like 30 minutes, I already had to sleeve cut out. But, the collar was a little tricky to get the right shape, its not the best picture of the collar in the render. What I realise is that lapel shape needs to be changed and once I did that the collar looked in place. Now that male is done until we get Zach in to fit him, and then it will all have to come apart again to make adjustments to each pattern piece before we cut out the real fabric.

Bodice pieces all traced

I move on to start cutting out the female, I have all here pieces into paper patterns now. There all a weird looking, thats what happens when you drape, thinks aren't as straight and "normal" looking as when you flat pattern. I was able to get everything cut out, Howard wanted me to test the front skirt first before I cut to out. It a shape that you wouldn't expect the skirt to be, so I cut on out to test and it still works the way I originally draped it to. I then proceed to cut two out, I didn't feel like cutting the underskirt or the back of the overskirt out yet since those are really easy and I know there going to work. So I decided to start to put together the front bodice and over skirt to make sure the piece all fit together. At the point how came singing into the shop, he is also slowly trying to convince me to wear the girls costume to graduation in May, which is just really funny.

 He keeps saying how he wished we could have started doing these years ago with me, which if I knew actually what I wanted to go into 3 years ago I totally would have. I think I had an idea of where want to go after college better then most people, I've always know I want to go into theater and work in costumes. Which is pretty specific, I took me till this year to realise I want to go into theater and work in costumes and work in the construction and management end, which is super specific. It was nice to hear him say the this by doing this and having these skills I'll get more jobs, which is what I've know along, but it was nice to hear a professor say your good enough to be employable, especially in theater.

Hi Mary!

TOP HAT TIME!

After that all happened I start to but gathering stitches around my whole bodice, the whole thing is gathered around. I then sorta flatlinned it to and under little bra piece I made that give the garment its shaped. After all that gathering I'm really starting to like tailoring more and corset making, you get sick of gather after a while. After all the gathering and one it was flatlined to the under bodice, I attached to the waist band. I then went on to the skirt, I decide to put pleats in the skirt where its all gather at the hem. Before I put the CF together I had to put those pleats in, those are what gives the hem that unique shape. Once all that was done it was time for more gathering stitches, I put those along the waist line where they needed to be. There are two different amounts of gathering on the skirt so I had to make sure I had less gathering at the CF and more towards the sides. Then it was time to attach the skirt to the waist band. And then I had the whole front half of the girl done, oh did I mention I did all this while wear one of the mini top hats I made for The Merchant, I look adorable. Tomorrow if I get time I think I'm gonna either do the under skirt or the back.

My lovely German Couple

Some lovely pants

I'm finishing up all the mocks ups for the male, there is soooooo some piece. I don't know why Howard chose the only image of a male that has this weird extra coat. I like I keep trying to find some information on what its purpose is or if anyone else had one but I just can't, is dude just had his own style I guess. Its not that the coat is difficult its just another added piece to the shirt, waistcoat, tailcoat, and trousers. Not to mention that each pattern has at least 4 or 6 different piece to it, everything but the pants and vest, has a different sleeve, different collar or different lapel. The seams on the coat and tailcoat are the same, which makes it a little easier. But the lapels, collar sleeves, and cut of the two are different. But as far as constructing a mock up the quicks to sew and cut out has been the vest, tailcoat coat.

You would think the shirt would be, it just takes a lot of time because there is so many bits that need to be gathered, plus there is a standing collar, cuffs and plackets. I also hate how I did the pattern for the shirt, in my research I found that shirts back then were just rectangles with gussets in the neckline and armseye. They were a big fan of gussets back then, even the women's short stays at the time got there shape from jus gusset. The thing I really want to change on the shirts is the sleeves, the gathering at the neckline and the shoulder seams. I already started to alter the basic shapes of the patterns, if I had the time I would totally make another mock up shirt, but I don't. Every day this week I have been in the shop till midnight working. One of the reason it keeps taking so long is whenever I start to put something together I have to stop and stare at it on the dressform and readjust it to make sure everything is going together right. 

Monday was the worst I was there till 12:30am I had packed everything up and got to the door to leave and saw it was snowing out. And I was not dressed for snow, I seriously had a moment where I seriously thought about just staying in the shop all night. I could have I had my books for the next day and change of clothes and a shower and food. It would have been totally do able especially since I would have to be back for my 9am class the next day. But I decided to brave the snow and it took me like 30 minutes to get home and I had to park in Narnia again this week.

But I did get alot done, I finally got the pants mocked up. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do these fall front pants, I've seen a lot of different version. I currently have plackets on the slits where it falls, but I'm think of may changing that to a facing. The challenge with these is in the rendering you can not see any buttons or closures. Like I know the concept and shape of how they work now its just choosing which is the best way to actually do it. So for now they are just stitched to together for the fitting. The pants are going to need to be taken on the leg alot. The pattern I based them off of where a lot loser in the leg and crotch then these pants need to be.  I already have to actually fabric, as I've mentioned before, and they have stretch to them which is great.

I also got to added all the collars onto the coats they look as good now, I really can't wait to fit them on Zach. I'm just dreading those sleeves, because I know they are wayyyyy to big. I already took the pattern down like 4" in size which should help alot. 

Drafting Patterns....

I've been in this project for about a month now, I'm catching everyone up on the process so far.
So all I was given the from the start was image of the 1800 German Couple, that is it. I just want to emphasise that, because as I begun my research I found many Blogs of people how have also made garments of this time period, and most of them brought or used some sort of commercial historical patterns. None of them seemed to draft the pattern from scratch using just slopers, I'm mostly talking about the male who's is drafted, the female is going to be draped. Where I didn't have this, while I could have easily found a coat or shirt pattern that could be easy to alter to the image, I made a decide to make this from scratch as much as I could.

I've been given two actor Maggie and Zach to fit each costume to. I had to take all there measurements myself so if something is off its my doing. Now I'm starting drafting the male, my professor Howard somehow has an unopened vest pattern from like 1993 in his office he gives to me to work with. That is after I had already successfully created a sloper for Zach modifying a basic fit pattern. The original patten one I used was the Butterick 5746 its just a basic fit pattern for women in a size 12. And Zach is small a 31" waist and 38" chest, so a women's size 12 actually is about his size. So I modified the pattern for a man and too Zach size. But Howard said it looked to small, so he skipped to his office and came out with his vest pattern that also has pants. He was soo excited, the vest was in Zach size but his size in a 1993 style vest. To make Howard happy I used that pattern and modified to Zach size. I Cut along the size 38-40 lines, but what Howard didn't realise is that in 1993 a size 38-40 final measurements of a vest was actually about 46-48. I ended up having to take out about 10" after I took out seam allowance. I was basically just creating a whole new pattern from scratch, but I did it I was that base sloper to create the waistcoat, tailcoat, and coat patterns. And it actually works, once I was finished they looked nothing like that 1993 vest pattern.

For the sleeves I found a historical pattern in stock that actually was for a jacket with similar seams so I just used that, the only problem is its for a size 46 which is way to big. I can already tell they are going to have to be completely redone. The pants I decided not to use the one in the same vest pattern, since they are baggy with a fully gathered wait band, which is just to annoying to deal with. I found a historical pants pattern the were just basic pants in Zach size. They aren't as tight and taper as I need them to be, my pants are also fall fronts I had to create that, which once I looked at my research I realised my pattern is actually the difficult or different from normal pants. I didn't worry about the fit around the leg that much, just the the wait, inseam, and outseams were right, because the are so form fitting I'm just going to pin around his leg on the mock up to get the right shape. I already have to fabric for the pants that also magically came from Howard's abyss of an office. I'm excite to get that point with the real fabrics but thats still a long way away.

Late Sunday Night Drafting

This was me on sunday doing some adjustment to my patterns before I started on my mock up. Patterns patterns and more patterns my Sunday night, don’t let me alone in the dressing room, I watched 9 episodes of breaking bad since I’ve been here and have to be back in 12 hours

About this little project

So for my last semester at George Mason University, I'm doing this independent study with Howard, officially its called Advanced Pattern Making. That title does not even come close to what I'm doing. Since I'm going into a career in costume construction, Howard has set up this independent study that basically combines everything I have seen and learned in the past 4 years as a student of Theatre at GMU. I'm constructing from scratch a 1800 German Couple, all I have is a historical rendering to go off of. I must flat pattern and drape everything on my own, using my knowledge of pattern make and research to create the final garments. I have been given two actors to build to and am in charge of taking all their measurements, so if something doesn't match its on me. The whole goal of this independent study is to take me through the process that I would expect from a regional theater. It is definitely going to be a challenge, but this is the sorta of challenge I absolutely love, I seriously couldn't see myself doing anything else. I just wish that when Howard ask my sophomore self what I want to do in theater after graduation I had known then, so I could have done more of these. But in all I feel fully prepare for this and it has been tough and with all the snow days it has delayed our schedule  bit which means extra late nights, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Here is what I'm making, this is all I was given to being with. In total the men has five pieces to build and the women has two.