This week has turned into my Comic Con week of sort. And I’m dedicating it to Pretty Grievance and her Wearable Wednesdays. It’s half-way through the month and I obviously needed a little bit of pick-me-up to get to the finish line. So nothing like a bit of humor to tide us over innit!
Not much sewing around here lately. I’ve been bogged down with paperwork instead. My only creative outlet has been these MMM photos. All were taken on the phone – I felt too hassled to even manage a tripod. And as motto of the month has been to “do it with conviction”, I decided to play with the weird angles that inevitably result from too short an arm or propping up the phone.
‘I, Pia of overflowingstahs.com, sign up – belatedly – as a participant of Me-Made-May ’15. I endeavour to wear at least one Me-Made each day for the duration of May 2015′
Finally, I decided to join in all the fun for a change. I normally don’t join the various exciting sew-alongs because I’m confident I could follow through. But this blog and your readership have helped motivate me tremendously in upping my productivity. I feel I’m now in a place where my not so ambitious pledge is finally possible. Here’s to many more years of conquering new sewing territories and taming that Mt. Everest of a Stash.
I’m going to try to keep up with the photo evidences, but post them only weekly to keep the noises down. And maybe have some fun experimenting with different photo approaches rather than my bog standard tripod self-timer shots. Here’s the first week of May…
I’m a bit peeved. I went to this show recently and was told photos were verboten. Yet I just checked out Tinie Tempah’s tour of the exhibit on BBC iPlayer and there were plenty of visitors – including him – who had their camera phones out. Humph.
Instead I was reduced to under-prepared sketching: I should have printed out some croquis so that I could focus on filling in the style lines rather than struggling to conjure up the body forms to support my pencil & paper garments. I suppose I should be grateful that V&A even allowed sketching. The Isabella Blow exhibit at Somerset House I went to a while ago didn’t even allow that. And there were a few choice McQueens there. But all this meant that despite spending a couple of hours there I was too preoccupied to soak up the atmospheric themes.
I don’t know if the iPlayer video will play outside of the UK, but if you’re a fan I’d definite recommend watching it. While no substitute for getting close and personal with the creations – some are much more impressive in person than in photos, the video does take you through all the rooms and show some garments in more details. Alternatively you can try the Savage Beauty exhibit pages on the V&A website which has other videos and some photos of the rooms.
I guess I must be a fan since I came home with yet another McQueen book (my 4th). I was expecting the exhibition book to have the same content as the NYC Met version – maybe with the supposedly extra outfits laid out for this McQueen’s home game. But actually it’s totally different inside. So I couldn’t resist.
Because 3 wasn’t enough?
Other loots from the shop. How cute is this over-priced zipper?
As for the outfits, to be honest a lot of them are over the top even for me (by which I mean impractical – it’s harder to shock me with clothing). But I do like how most of them still have very strong and clear silhouettes. Sometimes avant-garde gets so messy that it looks like a giant ball of exploded fabric stash. Most McQueens you can still see the human silhouette, albeit exaggerated sometimes.
A lot of the beauty for me is in the details, and the specific executions of what by now aren’t entirely new ideas – sorry die-hard McQueenies. For me being the first doesn’t make you the best. Great ideas can be ruined by poor executions in design or production.
In his tailoring there are lots of interesting style-lines that you rarely see in the commercial patterns. Yet they yield silhouettes that are simultaneously classic and modern, controlled yet edgy. I also love the Romanticism in the textures, patterns, and material he used. That’s Romanticism of the dramatic variety – the realization of the ephemeral nature of life & beauty – rather than the valentine roses variety. The shredded hem, raw edges, frayed or rough texture mixed with traditional crew embroidery, etc. It will be these details that I turn to for inspirations rather than trying wholesale copies, which could be tedious, difficult and unrewarding.
The other thing that I like about McQueen is the fearless way he cut into his works-in-progress, shocking the talented ladies at Givenchy Altelier who work cautiously and precisely. My own obsessive cautiousness bugs me from time to time. So it feels vicariously liberating to watch the way he worked, as shown in this other BBC video (YouTube version below, also on iPlayer if you have access)…
Granted he had proper training. Novices like us would be hard pressed to achieve the same results were we to attack fabrics in the same manner. Nonetheless it’s a reminder not to lose sight of the forest for the trees…an advice I blatantly ignored during my visit and now wished I had spent an extra half hour just soaking up the atmosphere.
Not to let the little scraps from my latest muslins go to waste, I used them up wearable-muslining yet another raglan T remake. The original was Burdastyle 2010-02-122 first in a Breton stripe with hardly any alterations, then again in a scratchy glittery pinky number with alterations based on a previous knit block. This time I decided to recreate the style-lines using my own blocks.
Because there’s slight difference in shoulder slope between my Darted and Dartless Knit Blocks, I decide to draft the Dartless Raglan separately rather just cover over the style-lines and hope for the best. The approach is exactly the same as for my Dartless Raglan Block Test 3.
Design Changes Made
The pattern
Burda 2010-02-122 with minimum bust ruching
Fitting 1 with over-zealous bust ruching, oops
Lowered necklines and shorten sleeves & hem.
Added underbust seam. The back one wasn’t really necessary, but I didn’t have big enough scrap to cut the back as one piece.
Added a little bit ease to side seams and sleeve seams for a skimming not tight look.
Pivot the side bust dart to CF.
Slash and spread the front bust piece. With my current Do-It-With-Conviction mindset, I decided that the Burda original’s bust ruching was too wimpy and the mostly horizontal ruching risk a repeat of the mono-boob look which I rejected in the guise of Burda 2013-03-113 (now given away). So I spread the splashes the full arch from raglan seam to underbust seam for a startburst effect (rather than just to the side seam). The Burda original had curved CF. Mine came out rather straight. And since I was also worried that CF neckline might gap, I curved my CF an extra 3/4″ and shorten my bust pieces neckline by easing 1/2″ into stablizing Vilene Bias Tape.
The result of these changes, as you see in the first fitting above, wasn’t pretty. My overzealous bust ease + side seam ease + front neckline shortening resulted in a deflated PVC balloon look. By this point I had already finished the neckline, and my eye-sight too old to cope with unpicking. The only things I could do were:
Tighten the bodice by removing the side seam ease and the bust CF curved ease.
Unpick the CF seams from the neckline down just enough to lengthen the neckline back to what it is in the pattern.
These seem to have helped a bit. The bust doesn’t look so bad now.
Only the neckline was stablized with Vilene Bias Tape. The Burda original have you stablize the raglan seams as well. Unlike with normal shoulder seams for long sleeve knit garments, I never found any conclusive advice whether raglan seams need stablization. Since my armholes feel a bit on the tight side I decide to leave these seams stretchable for more comfort.
My sewing order: CF bust seam > Underbust seams + Raglan seams > Finish neckline > Hand pleat bust & tack CF loop in place at neckline and inside underbust seam > Sleeve – Side seams > Hems
For bust ruching I prefer irregular hand pleating rather than machine gathering. I find with fabric that aren’t heavy/drapy gathering result in unsightly puffiness. Irregular hand pleating produce more natural looking drapes.
The Verdict
Again a very wearable muslin. But I’m still on the fence about my over-zealous bust ruching. I will have to study photos of this type of design detail more carefully and figure out how exactly I’d like bust ruching to look. As Clio commented on my Instagram preview of my first fitting…
There really is a “just right” amount when it comes to ruching on the bust, isn’t there?!?!
