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[hsifeng]

OK, it’s been more than a week since I posted the teaser about my new costume project.

First, a shot illustrating how frustrated I got with taking pictures of the bodice.

Seriously, I am not even going to share the images I took while trying to get a picture of my awesome side-back seams because a) apparently I am not a contortionist and b) there is not an Android app that takes photos of your back for you without you looking like an idiot in the process. *eye roll*

You’ll just have to take my word for how awesome they are at this point.

And now, for the scribbling of a madwoman


 

What the hell am I doing here you might ask? Well, *clearly* it’s me determining the exact ratio of pancakes to syrup for my Sunday breakfast.

OK. It’s not that. It’s my calculations for the width of the bands and guard for my dress’s skirt, I was attempting to determine how far up my leg the last guard would be. The final measurements are the ones I circled. Also, the guards aren't really black it turns out, they are dark blue.

I decided to go with stacked pleats again (because I love them on my current dress) so I also had to figure out the length needed in order to pull this off.

See Mom, my college degree WAS useful for something. 

While this example is for stacked pleats, it can be used for any pleat style. The math goes something like this:

Make up a sample pleat that is about the size you believe you want on your final dress.


 

Mark the pleat with pins at the point where the fabric first ‘enters’ the pleat and the point where it ‘leaves’ the pleat (and another pin in the middle of it all because you don’t need it coming apart while you measure)…

Check the length of the overall pleat…


 

Finished Length Of The Bodice Waist is divide by the Length Of The Sample Pleat. If you get anything other than an even number either a) mess about with the sample pleat until you get a length that WILL divide evenly, b) figure out how much you’ll have to ‘fudge’ with one or more pleats at the back of the dress in order to get the pleats to work out or c) go fix your first drink of the evening and come back and deal with the problem as above in “a” or “b” when you are done.

Once you have gotten your sample pleat squared away, remove the ‘linchpin’ from the middle of your pleat and unfold it to measure the pleat fabric’s overall length.

Wow…that is a lot of fabric!


Now, take that measurement and multiply it by the number of pleats you are going to need for your whole skirt. Take a moment to realize that this means you are going to be handsewing at least two lengths of guards down for this same distance. Where was that drink you made before? Use it now.

After the drink, realize that this HUGE number of inches is really only about 3.5 yards. Furthermore, realize that this means you are using a much more accurate amount of fabric in your skirts that has been used on many prior occasions (cartridge pleats, I am looking at YOU).

Have a celebratory drink and then get back to work!

After a couple of days of cutting and sewing in every spare minute, I have the skirt attached to the bodice and am thrilled with the overall results. I would love to share photos of the work up until this point, but I didn’t get any yet. Instead, I have the following images to share with you:

Gratuitous shot of my workstation.

Why yes, that is a TV you see there. However, I am still watching movies on my laptop instead of on that ancient beast because I can’t stream Netflix instant watch to the TV…and X-Files soothes the savage sewing beast.

Gratuitous tool shot.

This is probably my favorite sewing tool with the exception of my rotary cutter. If you don’t have one, get one. MILES better than the old ‘chalk in a plastic holder’ I used to have.

UP NEXT: Sleeves!

EDIT (because I am an idiot and jillwheezul is nice enough not to point it out). *grin*

When attaching pleated skirts to bodices, I have always first mounted said skirt to a waistband. This time I forsook that step and simply stitched the skirt directly to the bodice, about ¼” above the bottom edge/waistline. Why you ask? Because I have done it the other way previously due to the possible need to modify the bodice at a later date due to weight gain/loss. Having the skirt on a waistband meant I could separate the skirt, mess with the bodice and slap the skirt back on with relative ease.

Due to the construction style of this bodice, that isn’t really possible: So sewing the skirt directly to the bodice just made more sense.

Why waste the extra material for a waistband?

Why sew the skirt on TWO items instead of one?

First I assembled the skirt and guards so that it was one big, long, striped rectangle. Then I turned the ‘top’ edge of the skirt (where I would be attaching it) over by about 3”`¹ and steamed that fold. Then I laid out the skirt on my tabletop, measured out 10” sections of the top edge, and marked the 10” increments with pins.  Each of these was pleated into a 2” final  Stacked Pleat – and no, they weren’t all consistent and some of them have less fabric in the backside of the pleats than others, but no one is going to see that bit and the outside looks lovely so who cares? *grin*

Once the pleats were in and well pinned in place, I stuck the whole thing through my sewing machine and made a line of stay-stitching about an inch down from the top turned edge.²  This held my pleats in place while I repined the final skirt product to my bodice and got down to handsewing all that fabric to my bodice. ³

 

 

¹ When I cut the skirt out I had added a few inches to the width - 2" in this case, although more ended up being turned over in the end - to ensure that I would be able to have this turned-under bit, I find that the resulting pleats stand out better when they are backed by a bit of fabric. ^A   I determined this amount by the incredibly scientific process of holding the blue trimmed skirt fabric up to the spot I was sure my bodice waist landed on my body and then rolling the edge under until the bottom edge was as far off the floor as I thought it should be pre-hemming.

^A In cases where the fabric of the skirt is lighter weight, I have been known to add a heavier weight backing strip of 5”-6” to help fill out the top of the pleats more (and yes, I can put a footnote in my footnote if I wanna! *sticks out tongue at academic standards*).

² All the while I was stitching, I was praying to the God Of No Broken Needles In The Eye. My poor machine, she’s 20+ years old and only gets serviced when I remember it and she STILL sews like a champ. Kenmore, you are my hero!

³ I think I would like to have leather quilting thimbles permanently attached to my sewing fingers; I always forget how much they hurt when I haven’t been stitching in awhile and then suddenly think I can put a needle through 11 layers of wool, two layers of linen and two layers of canvas…over…and over…and over again. *owch*

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I do love the project room, although I do share with a metal working hubby, three cats and a dog. ;)