Final Third Outfit

Beths Costume

Bodice

For this the panels were kept plain except for the two back panels which had shirring parts on them. For this I started by tracing out the pattern pieces on my purple fabric before putting it in an embroidery hoop which will hold the tension to allow the elastic thread to bring in back in. Once I had shirred the lines on the fabric I removed the hoop to asses how much it has shrunk. After I had done this I could then remark the pattern pieces on the new scale, making sure to not cut any of the shirring, because it would remove the design I had made, undoing the elastic and the tension. 

When constructing the bodice I accidentally sewd two panels the wrong sides together so the seams were on the wrong side, so I had to unpick this and resew it which was annoying but fine as this was not time consuming. 

I then lined this bodice, feeling confident in doing this as I had done it twicepreviously with the same pattern. At first, I wasn't sure whether I should be using purple threads on these panels or green but I decided to use the green thread to create cohesion through my bodice.

On the back panels that has slightly spring up as of the shirring parts in the middle making them stay as flat as I imagined, but I think this will be fine once on a body and ties at the back. They have worked well to be symmetrical to each other as of the way that I marked where the shirring should be on the flat patterns. 

I sewd the cuffs in making sure the pin the circle patterns so that it would be evenly distributed. 

Skirt

I then made the skirt to match the green bodice three by taking an average waist measurement of twenty eight inches and adding five more for an overlap and to act as the seam allowance. I cut this out with a depth of 4.5 inches which I folded in half and overlocked to then bag out. Once I had done this I cut the rest of the fabric up to the length of the waistband, forgetting that I wanted to gather it so I would have needed to make the fabric as much longer size. I adapted this by cutting up more fabric the same width and overlocking the two pieces together to make a seam that had the raw edges covered. This seams had a sort of wavy look to it, a result of the type of fabric I believe, which I do like as it does fit with the Rococo style of waves and curves.

I used elastic to gather the skirt in, holding the tension on the elastic pieces the same throughout to make the fabric evenly gathered. I then sewd this to the waistband, where I could have engulfed it in the waistband to hide the two pieces. 

I found the process of sewing the sides and the hem of the skirt really challenging as of the fabric being so slippery and shiny, as even when I pinned the fabric to then sew it still managed to twist and not lay flat. This did lead to me unpicking and rewing the fabric but it did not help my case and just created pulls in the fabric. 

I wanted to add my dyed fabric as a trim around the bottom of the skirt, so I pleated it and was preparing to sew it around the whole skirt when I started and checked what it looked like and decided that I did not like it at all. The texture did not look right at all and I felt like it cheapened the look of the skirt. So I have taken this off and just hemmed the skirt. The hem was slightly simpler to hem but still created a distorted look. I then added poppersto the skirt based on the models measurement's and wear it would wrap around and meet.

For this skirt I was planning to have two hip pads/ the bum roll on either hip to create a shape similar to the panniers but when my model tried it on the shape was completely wrong and instead of adding volume it just made her look a lot larger than she is which was not the plan for this garment. I still wanted to add volume and use the pads so I tried it with just one sat onto of her bottom and this look a lot better and was more flattering.

Dyeing fabric

I next attempted to dye my fabric for the third bodice which was seen to be unsuccessful after my attempt, I made sure to follow the instructions and stir the fabric and constantly watching it. In the end, I think it came down to the fabric being wrong for the dye. I thought it would work but perhaps the fabric wasnt the type that I thought it was. 

For my next attempt, I used a dye that needed to be boiled like my samples were, I put half the pack of dye into the near boiling water, and made sure to constantly sir it and move the fabric around as to get a consistent colour on the fabric but also because the pot I had to use was very small for the fabric size. I put washing up liquid into the pot to help the colour dye evenly. This dye stuck really well and stayed a good colour when washed out. I made sure to make the water gradually cooler when rising it through to not shock the dye and fibres, which would have removed more colour than wanted.

Adding eyelets

The process of planning where each eyelet would go was found to be quite simple as I was familiar with how to do this. I made sure to divide my fabric length by how many eyelets I want to hold the bodices together, making sure I removed the measurements for the gap at the top and bottom. When doing this I found it useful to physically put the eyelets on the fabric to visualise how it will look and the space taken up but the actual eyelets. 

• On the green bodice with the smaller silver eyelids I originally thought that nine would work as of the smaller size, so I worked the measurements out and marked it, placing the eyelets on and realising that this looks too overcrowded. So I removed every other eyelets so there is now six, like the other two bodices, this was useful to do as I wouldn't have known it would look too overcrowded if I didn't lay them on the fabric before. 

I then snipped the fabric where my markings were and used the tools provided in the pack to instal them. A few of the eyelts got hammered at a bad angle meaning they would roll badly so used plpyers to undo them and try again.

Final Outfit Two

Amys Costume

Dress 

As like each bodice I interfaced each panel of the bodice to add extra support and support to my garment. I made piping by sewing cord into bias binding, which made it stitch as close to the cord as possible holding in close. I made sure to pin the pining where the seam allowance would catch it rather than to the edge of the garments as this would not catch the bias tape correctly and show the stitch lines. I did this is every seam of the bodice to add features and to differetuate the different bodices further.

Moving onto the front middle panel I drew a grid onto the fabric so that when I start the beading process I can plan it better making it more symmetrical. I started beading with the central piece, starting small and adding to it, the design inspired from my samples in my book. I then worked out the next designs wanting them to be smaller to not take away from the middle piece. I added pieces planned by making the top half and bottom half have the same design on different sides to add variety but not much that it looks too random and unprepared. 

I used the same coloured beads around the design to add cohesion. After the main design were done I added smaller beaded design to fill in the gaps, I chose to do this to not overwhelm the design and take away from the bigger proper designs.

Moving onto the front middle panel I drew a grid onto the fabric so that when I start the beading process I can plan it better making it more symmetrical. I started beading with the central piece, starting small and adding to it, the design inspired from my samples in my book. I then worked out the next designs wanting them to be smaller to not take away from the middle piece. I added pieces planned by making the top half and bottom half have the same design on different sides to add variety but not much that it looks too random and unprepared. 

I used the same coloured beads around the design to add cohesion. After the main design were done I added smaller beaded design to fill in the gaps, I chose to do this to not overwhelm the design and take away from the bigger proper designs.

Next I needed to make the trim to go in the seam between the front and side front panels, so I took the lace and pleated it as I went and pulled it through the sewing machine. I took this slow as I hadn't pre-pinned where the pleats are so taking it slow allowed me to focus on my accuracy of the pleats in the measurements. I made sure to make more of this than I had thought I would need as I made the pleats quite tight and it neeed to travel the whole way of the front seam. I would periodically check the pleated laces length against the pattern to see how much more I needed to pleat. I then pinned the lace to once side of the fabric before pinning the other for the seam to make sure that the laces was accurately placed in the seam and wouldn't move when sewing. 

I then topstitched the front panel with the lace folder over outwards towards the sides seams, as without this the lace wasn’t laying flat and it was covering the beading. This has worked well as it now lays flat showing off the pleats and bead work, I made sure to sew slowly as it has kept the sewing neat and tp the edge of the panel.

I added the lining in and came across troubles in my sewing when getting to the point of the top of the front panel of the neckline as this was slightly bulky. To try and render this issue I trimmed down the fabrics on the inside. When adding in the lining and bagging it out at some point the stitches from the lace pleats were revealed so I flipped it back inside out and went over the line, adjusting it to be sewn with a better seam allowance which then hid the stitch lines.

For this garment, as it would need to go over the head as of the panniers I wanted to make sure that it would absolutely fit over the shoulders and bust. To do this I created a slit in the top of the dress and hand sewd the double turn hem down. II sewd this length of fabric onto the inside of the lining so that the raw edges would be completely hidden.

I then gathered the pink fabric that will be revealed in the middle of the dress. Once I had done this and pinned it in the gap I had to release some of the gathers from the sides to allow it fit in the gap better. 

Sewing this pink gather fabric onto the bodice was very challenging for me to do as even though I had pinned it I kept catching wrong parts of the lining in my sewing line, which I unpicked and then had the same problem again it was hard to work with this as I was getting frustrated as of the mistakes and because of the large amount of fabrics I was working with and had to keep moving around. In the end the fabric ended up on the wrong side of the lining but when I stitch the lining and front layer down I think it will be caught within this. 

As I was now confident that I had enough time to complete this, I re-looked at the blue and pink bodice, Amy March's, as it was looking as it wasn't sitting very well on my mannequin. I made my model try this on and it was slightly obscured on her at the body of the point where the bottom tip is. I believed the lining had been caught in my stitches when securing the skirt down. To try and fix this I unpicked this area of the sewing which slightly helped, but sat better once I had unpicked some of the pink layer of skirt which I could now see had been caught and lifted in areas once I had unpicked this, I re-sewd the lining down and pinned it more precisely. this has made the bodice sit better.

I then tried a few placements on the skirt to decided where to put the stitches and decided to go here as its near enough near the centre back to not be covered by the arm when it is down. I made sure to hide the thread start by going into the used of this new shape and not creating a knot beforehand but by stitching.