How We Made A Dress at Craft Night

Monday night is craft night!  The reason this differs from every other night of the week is that I have two wonderful friends come round and we craft together, helping each other out when we get stuck.

Just before our first weekend residential larp, one of my friends asked if we could help her run up an under dress, as she was running short of time but needed it for her NPC.  We thought it would be fun to document the process, so here's how we did it!  Words are by me, photo captions are by Katy! (No really, only Katy would write these captions :-P)

We started off by folding the fabric in half and spreading it out on my lounge floor.  (Apologies for the lighting in the photos - they were all taken at night!)

Step 1: ALL OF ZE FABRICS… ALL OF ZEM

Then, ask your dress wearer to lie down on it with their arms out stretched and draw round them.

I are drawing a WUTH

Ruth: Please amputate my legs here, so that the dress is floor length

Shhhhhhh little wuth… go to sweep, when you wake up YOU WILL HAVE NO FEET…AND A DRESS

Ruth is lying at the point she wanted the dress to end, plus a little extra for hemming purposes.  Once you have drawn round your model, cut away any excess fabric at the top.

Step 50: Let Ruth do the cutting IF YOU ARE LIKE ME AND NOT ALLOWED TO HANDLE SCISSORS. Scissors are for grown-ups.

 Then fold in half and giving yourself a generous seam allowance (very generous - we cannot stress the generosity enough), cut allong your drawn lines.

This hole? This is a Ruth.

Do not cut off your fingers. ONLY FEET CUTTING IS ALLOWED

Step 19: Be sensible like Ruth. :( no-one likes sensible

The finished piece will look like the above photo.  Ruth wanted slightly droopy sleeves, so that's what we went with, but you can make them as straight or droopy as you want.

USE YOUR MAGIC PENS TO DRAW ON ZE FABRIC. ALSO USE THEM TO DRAW MONKEYS ON EVERYTHING WEEZA OWNS. (Srsly, erasable gel pens – best sewing tool ever. I love them)

This is a good pic of out drawn lines - fun tip - erasable gel pens make great fabric markers because they iron off!

Ruth is disappoint. She thinks she will get chilly in this dress, and people will be able to see her knickers… this is because we have not sewn it up yet!

Hey look Weeza, I mades a wedding dress!... oh wait… no

Step 700: Do not leave thyself enough seam allowance, this allows for you to be CREATIVE. And creative people win. So there! Also, Step 701: Be a skinny minny like Ruth, this way YOU WILL NOT USE SO MUCH FABRICS… and that is ECONOMICAL.

Step 968: Take a million photos, make Ruth grumpy.

Let’s pretend the angle is ‘artistic’ (bonus points to anyone who gets that reference! Be my friend FOREVER)

Next - pin the shoulder seams and one side seam and get your model to try their dress on.  If you discover, as we did, that you haven't given yourself enough of a seam allowance, don't worry, just cut a strip to be a tiny side panel out of your scrap fabric and pin it in.

Cut out a strip of some fabric, or let Weeza do it. She’s responsible.

Sit and watch Ruth, being Ruth. (THAT IS ME BY THE WAY… MY FACE AND MY EXTREMELY SHORT SKIRT) And you can clearly see in this picture where Ruth’s feet have been amputated from before…

Again, notice the RESPONSIBLE ADULT USING THE SCISSORS. This is because if I was allowed to use them RUTH WOULD HAVE NO FEET BY NOW.

Step 1034: BE EXTREMELY BORED BECAUSE WEEZA TOOK HER CAMERA AWAY TO TAKE SENSIBLE PHOTOS

Ruth: I’m a laaaaaaady

Don’t pin Ruth in the boob… she won’t like it.

Then, try the dress on again and if you are us again, discover that you need to repin your side panels.

Step 1165: Actually do something helpful for the first time in the evening

Step 1166: Realise you weren’t helpful, because you pinned the strip in the wrong place.

Step 1167: Twice.

PIN AGAIN. This time I was allowed to help with SPEED PINNING. Take a break to let your OCD organise all the pins in Ruth’s pin cushion… or use them to spell out your own name, because this irritates her.

Help your model back into the dress...

Here Ruth, HAVE ZIS DRESS

Step 1587: BE INSUFFICIENTLY TALL TO HELP RUTH INTO HER DRESS

Step 1588: Laugh at the fact that RUTH IS STUCK IN HER DRESS, continue until Weeza puts down the camera to come and help Ruth like the sensible adult she is.

Then pin any adjustments you need to make and check the overall fit.

Ruth: Weeeeeza, WHERE YOU STICK ZAT PIN?

Droopy droop is too droopy. DROOP

Ruth has realised she is wearing A DRESS

Ruth: Shut up Katy. You are helping NO-ONE HERE

 

Ruth decided she wants the sleeves less droopy, so we pinned them to where she wanted them and cut the excess off.

TAKE A PITCHER OF ZE WEEZA FACE

Weeza: *more pinning of the Ruth-dress* Katy: UGH, ARE WE NOT DONE ALREADY?

HALF A DRESS AND RUTH’S AMPUTATED LEGS

 Help your model out of the dress (which is ful of pins at this point) and then sew all your seams.

ARRRRRR… RUTH IS CURRENTLY A PIRATE

Even weeza cannot stop the giggles of Ruth being stuck in the dress… oh come on… IT WAS FUNNY

But she is adult enough to help through the giggles… the photos are blurry, BECAUSE I AM NOT.

Ypu might also take a break at ths point, like we did!

Step 65832: But first… let me take a selfie!

Clarification: RUTH IS NOT STRIPPING HERE… I’m not sure what she IS doing, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t stripping… I think…

If you’re interested, THIS IS WHAT WEEZA LOOKS LIKE WHEN SHE WRITES ALL OF HER BLOG POSTS… so now, when you’re reading this, you can picture her, sitting here, WRITING THIS. Except weeza DIDN’T write this. I did.

 Once the seams were sewn we neatened them up with the over locker and Ruth tried it on again.

LOOK WEEZA – I MADE A RUTH! Or a dress. Or you and ruth made a dress… one of these things.

It fitted well so we moved on to pinning the hem.

TWIRL LIKE A BALLERINA RUTH… TWIRL

Interesting fact for you… Both Weeza and Ruth pin backwards… MADNESS. I lied about the fact being interesting.

AND YOU CAN AGAIN CLEARLY SEE IN THIS PICTURE THAT RUTH HAS NO FEET LEFT… just like she asked at the beginning… I CALL THIS A SUCCESS.

After that we hemmed the sleeves, neckline and hem and called it a good job well done.

Another New Frock

Mostly just because!  I had the fabric, I had the pattern...  It seemed like a plan so I went for it.  As per usual I have discovered that I don't work well without a deadline, so it's taken me a while to sew, but I'm reasonably pleased with the results so I don't mind too much!

The pattern is Vogue 8785.  It was a Christmas present from my little sister a few years ago.  Mostly because I do like dramas set in war time/1940-50's but they do bring out dress hankering.  I wanted a shirtwaist dress!  I did try to make one to a different pattern, but it was an abysmal failure, so we won't talk about that...

The fabric is a floral print babycord that I picked up last time I was in The Cheap Shop in Tiptree (Essex).  If you are ever near Tiptree you should really go to the Cheap Shop, but be prepared to give them all your money, as they sell every wonderful craft thing you could ever imagine!

I did alter the sleeve length as I felt that the 3/4 length just looks like I couldn't be bothered to make the sleeves long enough for my arms.

The buttons came from my stash (incidentally, button choice was limited due to the fact that most of my button sets only have 6 buttons and I needed 7).  They're plastic but as this isn't kit I am happy enough with them.

I did also do some last minute resizing, due to the fact that it looked like a sack on me when I first tried it on.  However, 1 cm off all bodice seams and you can see my waist again, so I'm much happier with it now!

Vogue 8785

 All in all, I'm quite pleased with this and I plan to mostly use it for volunteering at my local charity shop and summer days when I want a skirt but don't want to feel overly dressy.  Come back on Thursday for a special collaborative post I've taken part in!

Planning

No pics today, as I haven't quite finished my current make (it needs an overnight hem hang, before I can finish it).  So I thought I'd talk about the fact I'm going to Discworld Con in August.

I'm obviously very excited about this!  I also plan to make and wear costumes.  I originally had thoughts about 4 costumes (one for each day of the con, plus one for the gala dinner).  I am trying to reign myself in though and I don't really think this is a sensible plan.  Instead I am planning 2 daytime costumes and maybe something for the gala dinner.

I currently want to make a Magrat Garlick costume and a Sandra the Real Seamstress costume, to which end I have recently re-read Night Watch, to remind myself of Sandra's outfit. 

The only description I can find is that she has a quilted workbasket and wields a darning mushroom.  If anyone knows what a quilted workbasket looks like, please, will you tell me?  In the meantime I plan to make a quilted top for my favourite wicker basket.  I also plan to acquire a darning mushroom (bonus points if I can find someone to teach me how to darn with it).

I freely confess I'm not overly sure what clothes to wear though.  I'm thinking skirt and blouse (as Magrat's costume will be a dress) and I want something that says Seamstress but could, under the right circumstances, be mistaken for Seamstress (Discworld joke).  Fishnet tights perhaps?  And maybe a skirt I can kilt up to show petticoats?  Should I have a chatelaine?

Magrat is a little simpler.  I plan to pick a pretty medieval dress I like the look of and make it in green cotton.  Then all I need is a corset to flatten me out a bit and some daisies.  For her occult jewellery I was planning on wearing all my larp characters jewellery at once.  Job done!

Still not sure what I want for the gala dinner.  Fanmaker experience tells me nothing too pouf-y (gets in the way), no droopy sleeves (also get in the way) and not white (too conspicuous by half).  Can anyone suggest a cool idea or a character I could dress up as without needing a wig? I'm tempted by Susan Sto Helit as I could pin a fake black hair strand into my actual hair, thinking about it...

Any thoughts or ideas warmly welcomed!