Spring of Sewing #2

Hello everyone! I'm sorry I skipped a week: moving has been even more time-intensive than I imagined it would be. I'm still not done, but I have gotten the all-important crafting supplies out of their moving-box prisons, so I'm here for another post! Since I didn't really have time to make anything after all that moving, we'll continue on with an exploration of the things I made for my spring sewing class.

As you may remember, the class was focused on costume making, especially for theatrical productions. Usually, that meant we were making garments to wear, but costumes aren't all shirts and pants. Accessories are just as important! For my second project, I decided that I'd be making an accessory, in the form of a large tote bag.

I wasn't about to make just any old tote, though. It was supposed to be part of a theoretical costume, after all, so I had to put some thought into it. I looked around for inspiration (read: dug through the available fabrics) until an idea came to me. I was going to make a tote bag inspired by the look of the leaf mimic butterfly, Kallima inachus.

(Photo from Australian Geographic)

It looks... like a leaf! Shocking, I know. You may be wondering why I would want to design anything based off of this drab insect, but this is only half the story. For you see, while the outside of the butterfly's wings are brown and leafy, the insides are much more striking.

(Photo from Wikipedia)

Now that's a pretty butterfly! I liked the idea of making a bag that was drab on the outside, but had a bright, colorful lining fabric, just like this butterfly's wings. I imagine it could be used by a character who's usually a wallflower, but has some sort of wild hobby or secret.

Unfortunately, I don't have any planning or process pictures for this bag. I used a pattern from a book, but it was borrowed, and I didn't think to write the name down for future reference. Truth be told, the book's pattern wasn't very clear: it had me put pieces together in the wrong order, and even included pieces that were totally unnecessary. I could have drafted out a simple flat-bottom bag pattern myself and saved a headache. 

Back to the design, though, I picked out a number of fabrics in order to achieve the butterfly effect I desired. I chose a flower-camo print canvas for the outside of the bag. It was dull enough to be unassuming, and I liked the added detail of the camouflage shapes being flowers instead of the usual blobs. For the lining fabric, I picked a really nice satiny teal lining. I would have liked to get closed in color to the actual butterfly's wings, but I couldn't find anything that quite fit, and the teal was just too pretty to pass up. I also used the lining fabric to create straps. Next, in order to bring in some of the contrasting yellow-gold color on the butterfly's wings, I found some metallic ribbon trim, which I added to the straps and around the inner edge of the bag. I sewed it all together, and viola!

Don't let this tote's understated outside fool you. Just like the leaf butterfly, it's got a colorful secret inside! The bag was perfectly complete as it was, but as you might have noticed, I decided to pay a little extra homage to the butterfly that inspired it in the form of some cross stitching. It was my first time doing cross stitch on linen instead of canvas, but I think it turned out pretty well regardless!

And there we have project number two of my spring series. Stay tuned for the grand finale, which will hopefully be out on time next week. Until then, stay crafty everyone!

Spring of Sewing #1

Hello again! Sorry for the increasing lateness of posts: I've been busy moving! Yes, I'm starting graduate school, and with that comes a relocation. Please forgive me if I miss a week now and then while I sort this whole thing out. I'm still crafting while I move, don't worry. In fact, I have a piece of lace for my Taako cosplay that's nearing 3 feet in length now...

But that's a post for another day! While I move, I thought I'd take the time to go over a little project I undertook earlier this year. You see, even though I've only officially started my latest cosplay recently, I've been thinking about it for much longer. I've been sketching ideas, diving into fanart, and relistening to The Adventure Zone essentially since I finished the last cosplay, and I knew early on that I'd need some better garment sewing skills to pull a new cosplay off. 

Since I didn't have much in the way of clothing sewing experience already, I needed to learn. And what better what to learn than to take a class? I found a costume design course thanks to the recommendation of a good friend and enrolled immediately. 

Now, this was an awesome class. I learned so, so much about sewing, even though I've known the basics since I was in elementary school! I got all of my measurements (super useful just to have on hand, but you need a friend to help), learned about reading sewing patterns, and even tried my hand at drafting my own. The class centered around three major projects, designed to increase in complexity as the course went on. In this post series, I'll show you the results of my projects! Hopefully, you all will be able to see how much improvement can be made in a short period of time, if you're dedicated to the work and have a good teacher.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. Let's start with the first project I did. 

The project description was fairly open-ended: I could make any kind of simple, unstructured shirt. No darts, no set-in shoulders, just a few pieces of fabric meant to cover the upper half of your body. In the spirit of the costuming nature of the class, I wanted to envision a character who would be wearing the garment. I settled on a sort of water-nymph girl (I'm weak for fantasy) wearing a loose tunic-type shirt. I sketched a lot of different ideas, some of which I might come back to someday, but there was only time to make one of them! Here's the one that I settled on.

I liked the idea of lots of pleating giving the garment shape without having to use things like darts or seams. The belt would prevent the tunic from being too tent-like, and the detailing on the bottom would be embroidered in a sashiko-like style to give the impression of waves and seafoam. I had ambitions. 

This is what I ended up making. Pretty different from the original, right?

Well, all of the changes I made to the original design were made for good reason. I forewent the pleats for simply gathering the fabric at the waist with a belt, for example, because the pleats just would've made the bottom of the top too full. I didn't need the pleats to get the effect I wanted, so they went.

I also added sleeves, where my original design was sleeveless. As it turns out, sleeveless shirts are a bit tricky to sew. In order to finish the armholes and keep them from fraying, you need an extra piece of fabric called a facing on the inside of the garment. That would mean drafting another piece of the pattern, making sure it fits, and sewing it together carefully. I was quickly realizing that sewing clothes is much more time-consuming than I imagined, and the sleeveless idea got scrapped in favor of short sleeves that could easily be turned in and stitched to finish. 

Finally, some of the detailing got left off simply because I ran out of time to finish the garment! I didn't get around to embroidering the hem of the tunic, and instead of sewing a wide fabric belt, I whipped up a quick crocheted number just to give it the shape it needed. That being said, these things are easy to change, and I fully plan to embroider the hem at some point, just because I think it'll really elevate the look of the tunic. (That's definitely a project that's a while away, though. Gotta finish a cosplay first!)

And there you have it! My first proper sewn garment! It's a humble start, for sure, but I learned so much from going through the process, and I know there's room to make it better if I so choose. I'll be back next week with project #2 of this series, so stay tuned if you want to see how I applied all that I learned. Until then, though, stay crafty!