No, not grade like what I do when my students turn in patterns! Grading a pattern is the process of sizing it up (or down). It sounds fairly intimidating, especially if you’ve ever seen any of the mysterious old-school tools for “assisting” in the process. (They’re a strange array of bars and levers, and I have absolutely no mortal clue what they’re meant to do or how they’re meant to do it.) Fortunately, there’s a quick and dirty way to grade a pattern…
4 CommentsCategory: Demos
Sometimes, bad things happen to good costumers. Like, your sister is throwing an 80’s party the next evening and you bomb out finding anything that can be mangled into some reasonable approximation of Cyndi Lauper so-unusual-excellence, and every bit of vintage you can find is a size 4. Now, that’s maybe not to traumatic if you actually are a size 4. I wouldn’t know, because as it turns out, my left thigh is a size 4. But I found the jacket of my dreams, and it was merely 4 or 5 sizes to small. What’s a girl to do? Gussets. Gussets will save you here.
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I love covered buttons. They just make a design look so pulled-together. The problem is that that directions on the back of the covered button kits are a little bit less than useful. They’re actually kinda bad. So for anyone who has ever wondered, here’s the sitch….
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I love bound button holes. They’re beautiful beasties. The problem is, I don’t like fat bound button holes with a smaller button. Many bound button holes are half inch, top to bottom. To my eye, that’s too much for a polite jacket. I prefer 1/4″. If you are similarly persnickety, this is the bound button hole for you. This is not the infamous turnsy-foldsy bound button hole you see in a lot of sewing books, which is difficult to do in some fabrics (like leather). This one is for those of us who are better at sewing than ironing. It is what I remember from a tailoring class, which may or may not be what was actually taught in the class. It does work out well, though.
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Pad stitching is awesome. It’s fantastic. It’s often replaced with fusible interfacings and spray-glue products, and that’s a darn shame. Because pad stitching is pretty nifty. It’s used to bond an infrastructure layer (traditionally hair canvas in tailoring) to the layer it’s stiffening (often the under-collar). And the great thing is, it provides MORE STRUCTURAL GLORY than the original infrastructure product can on its own. Beat that with a stick!
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Actually, most things are easier than making shirts. Shirts are seriously annoying creatures. However, the point of this little demo is that every sewing room needs good lighting, and good lighting is something you can make with far less skill than you need for most of sew-land. Curious yet?
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One of the joys of live theater is that there is always the possibility that something might go catastrophically wrong. I costumed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels a few months ago. Monday of tech week, the day after the production photos were taken, one of the two leading ladies went into the hospital. She was, obviously, replaced. Her replacement could not fit the same costume – the size was off, and she played the character differently. That sort of left me scrambling for a new concept (I settled on something around early Loretta Lynn meets GCB) and a some western wear that didn’t fall into my budget. Bring on the franken-jacket!
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A lot of sewers are afraid of bifurcated nether-garments. They look more complicated than skirts. I remember wearing bike shorts under costumes for years because I was afraid to attempt a bloomer. And that is an odd conundrum, because I had been making corsets for years. That’s just the power of the pant. But sister, don’t fear the bloomer… There’s a Really Easy Way(tm).
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File this under “Reasons missa is going to milliner’s hell” for 100, Alex.” This is the WRONG WAY to recover a hat. DO NOT DO THIS. It’s bad bad bad Wrongy McWrong. It’s really bloody fast. But it is wrong, and will probably get you mocked by anyone who knows what they are doing. You have been warned… ;)
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Nothing makes a pant look as fantastically olde-timey as a fall front. Unfortunately, a real fall front is a pain in the patouty to sew (trust me), and it’s not something that can be added in after the fact in any sort of historically accurate manner. Fortunately, if you’re not 100% concerned about authenticity, it’s easy enough to add a mock fall to existing pants….
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