Skirt Drafting

The basic Edwardian 5-Gore Skirt pattern that I found was designed for a tiny person, with a length of only 36 inches. So as to keep the proportions the same, I found the length for MY person (45 inches roughly) and scaled it up. This involves dividing every number by 4, and then multiplying it by 5 for the finished numbers. (The image is of MY new numbers). This allows for a skirt front to have center front numbers from 5.5" -> 6.825", 11.5" -> 14.325" etc etc. It should be pretty obvious, but I go to the nearest 1/8th of an inch. I don't like fussing about sixteenths.

And that's the basics for redrafting a design that already has measurements all over it (like most Victorian/Edwardian drafting). The main difference between this pattern and my actual skirt will be length. I adjusted the pattern for full length, but I'm only going to go to upper calf length.

In order to do the wrap-around-Hong-Kong seam finish, while my wool will have 1" seam allowance all around, my silk will have 1.75" seam allowance, so as to allow for a 3/8" seam edging.

I will get a chance to start breaking into my fabric after my last student of the day, who should be here in 10 mins or so. I'm excited!

Concert Wear

So my mother emails me, asking if a new jumpsuit on Modcloth is something I'd be interested in for concertwear. My current concertwear is: black silk or black velvet pants (depending on weather), black button up, black cropped tuxedo jacket OR black button up sweater if it's really cold. I took a look at the jumpsuit and a) it isn't worth $130 b) it's all synthetic. Ew. But, the style lines are cute, and it's remarkably similar to the cozitastic housedress/robe that I made this past spring.

So in an endeavor to copy this design, here are the pics. The jumpsuit shown is in teal because it's harder to tell style lines in black.

Lace Dress

Some ideas for the lace dress.

My Vintage Suit Design and Planning

As previously mentioned, I am planning on making my partner and I vintage-style suits for our wedding in December. While finding information regarding men's tailoring is much like pulling teeth, planning the VISUAL aspects of my own suit is far more interesting!

Firstly, I combed Etsy and Google, looking for "vintage suits". I opened up a picture of everything that looked interesting. I went through and reduced it some, but there still remained a lot of pictures that looked interesting. I then sketched out three pages worth of ideas and snippets.



We're talking


a lot



of sketches. You can see why I DID narrow it down a little bit. I figured that if I didn't like it enough to sketch it out, I didn't like it enough.

While I was looking up all of the pretties, I also looked up suit patterns on Etsy. While I could draft my own, I can also be lazy. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, none of the patterns were quite as interesting as some of the professionally made suits from yesteryear. It's almost like professionals and the home sewer have different skill sets?

Anywho, I wound up buying two suit patterns. One because it kept calling my name, Advance 5131,


and Vogue 8103 because I figured it would have better instructions than the Advance pattern, and was still reasonably cheap.


All these powers combined into my final thoughts on design!







There is a double flap breast pocket on the right hand side, the patch pockets have flaps, there is piping around the edges, and have the cuffs with a functional vent and buttons (as referenced in my men's tailoring book, on page 162). I just fell in love with all the pretty pretty buttons along the back of the suit! But I also wanted a little more oomph, hence the piping along the edges. There are no colors picked, as I want to go fabric shopping with my mother and find a nice fabric, rather than having my heart set on a specific color, and having to settle. I learned the hard way that this is best.

I don't know when the fabric shopping will be, my mother knows that I want to do so at some point this summer because I'm making a suit -- I have not mentioned that it'll be for my wedding, or she might try to purchase the fabric for me.

One Seam Skirt Explained and a Bonus 50s Shirt!

It's a cute 50s halter top that wraps around. Simple and easy-to-wear summer clothing. I forget where I found the image.

And here's a post by Handmade Jane explaining how to make the sneakily-designed One-Seam Skirt.

Link here.

It really is a brilliant pencil skirt, and I might have to make it!