The Letter S

The things I have to show you this week all begin with an 's'!  So today we are going to look at a suit I made.  It's the first complete suit I have ever made and though there are mistakes I'm still pretty pleased with it.

It was made for a friend who wore it to a Titanic evening.  This is also one of the first costumes I've done historical accuracy research for (I normally just check out a 'look' as opposed to worrying if it's accurate).  Once we'd found patterns I had a lovely time visiting all my favourite fabric shops, getting advice and coming away with samples.  We then chose final fabrics and I placed orders and got to work on a muslin.

Sadly I forgot to take photos of the muslin, but it did help a lot, especially at the times when I couldn't work out the pattern directions and more or less had to wing it...

As you can see I made the jacket, trousers, shirt and waistcoat.  The jacket and trousers are wool and the jacket has satin lapels.  The shirt is linen and the waistcoat cotton pique.  Incidentally, isn't pique a lovely fabric?  I most definitely want to use it again!


I think my favourite thing to make was the linen shirt.  The bosom panel was confusing, but then when I worked it out, a lot simpler than I was expecting!  And I'm quite a fan of pleats, so yes, it in particular was a lot of fun.

It's been an interesting project and I have learnt loads from it!  Fly construction, sleeve plackets, how to pad stitch and all sorts!  I hope you've enjoyed the pictures and I'll see you on Thursday with spats and a scarf!