Tyo’s costume this year was both simpler and more frustrating than Syo’s. Simpler in that she had it picked out early, it required making a single piece, not three or four, and I bought a marked-down twill for it so no precious or sentimental fabric was sacrificed. Frustrating mainly because Tyo didn’t prioritize the making of it, so she kept making other plans and disappearing, and I was not prepared to sew it all for her, both because she’s old enough to do it herself and also hello, fitting. But mainly the first reason.
In case you’re wondering, she’s a Top Gun pilot. I believe she went with “Goose’s granddaughter”. She bought the patches, but was unenthused by the “girl Top Gun” costumes (one was a stretch Lycra flight suit, the other was a mini-dress version). She wanted coveralls, but that fit her.
The first tricky bit was the pattern. A dig through my Burda mag stash (thank you, Zena!) turned up a few jumpsuit possibilities, but nothing that would work in my heavy twill. (Maybe not the best fabric choice, but I’d already bought it at this point.)
Next best would be a combination of a high-waisted pants and a shirt pattern. I had made her Burda 6849 in plaid flannel a few years ago, which seemed perfect, and I found a pants pattern fairly quickly in my pattern database. Unfortunately, my intermittently-meticulous pattern organization failed me, and I couldn’t find either pattern. I think I maybe lent the pants pattern to a friend a couple of years ago. I have no idea where the Burda shirt has gone. Obviously some Quality Assurance* activities are in order.
(*My day job is at a government lab and QA is an obsession to the point where it’s alternately hilarious and ridiculous.)
Anyway. Obviously plan B was in order. A further search turned up Burda 3038, above, which had all the required style elements—except that it’s a young junior size range. It goes up to a 37” hip, which is close, but, um, the drafting was definitely for a preadolescent body.
I raised the back rise a bit over an inch, doubled the size of the back darts, and added a bit of width to the hips. I should’ve added a bit more to the hips, but all in all it worked out surprisingly well. I’m not saying they fit “well” for pants, but, well, they fit!
The rise would be great as pants, but was not quite as high as I was hoping for for coveralls. But since we were on a project-runway style deadline, we made it work.
Oh yeah, deadline. Because my darling, sociable seventeen-year-old couldn’t make herself stay home long enough to work on it until the day before Hallowe’en. Aside from tracing out the patterns, this was entirely cut out and assembled on Oct. 30 between 4:00 and 11 pm. Which is well past when I need to be in bed, by the way.
Since I couldn’t find the shirt pattern, we fell back to Kwik Sew 433. Tyo had made this before for an unblogged Terry Bogard cosplay, so it was traced out and I knew it would fit. I added about 2” in length to the body, to accommodate the whole “it’s a jumpsuit now” thing. I also added a small tuck on each side of the back to make the waistband fit. It was a very small tuck—I could easily have taken the width out at the side seams or something.
And, by some miracle, it all worked. I thought maybe I added too much length at the back, but then she sat down. Less in the front might have been possible, but I don’t think it’s a problem, really.
I tried to make Tyo do most of the work, but as the evening wore on and time grew short I wound up doing more of it. So she did the cutting out, and constructed the pants (including cargo pockets!) mostly on her own, but I did all the sewing for the top except the darts. Fortunately I noticed that the KS seam allowances for the jacket/top were only 1/4” BEFORE we sewed anything at 5/8”, which would’ve been both hilarious and painful. I did manage to insert the zipper inside out.
You may have noticed the cuffs at both sleeve and pants hems. This is because both are unfinished. And yet, sometimes that’s good enough. She can finish those for next year, when it gets reworked into a ghostbusters costume.
I didn’t really mean to do intense Hallowe’en costuming this year—frankly I was more excited about decorating the house (which we ended up not even doing!)
Repeat patterns help a lot for speeding up Hallowe’en sewing. For the coat, we settled on 
but now I won’t be. Since 2m is not enough fabric for this pattern, we had to continue stash diving to find something compatible. Settled on a nice, beefy bottom weight cotton stretch sateen. Not as precious as the flocked denim but still a nice basic I’d hoped to turn into something practical for ME. For lining, we used the last of my precious red Kasha, (what did I say about vampire wannabe-ism?) which would hopefully make the whole thing a little more Hallowe’en-friendly (Hallowe’en here is either on the cusp of winter or in full on winter so making costumes warm is a priority).
Syo did most of the cutting out and basically all of the sewing on the shell. I directed and sewed the lining and hems. And the main hem is the main thing that we probably should redo, because I hemmed the two layers together and I shouldn’t have, but we were on a tight time schedule. So it doesn’t hang as nicely as it should. I made the buttonholes but she selected and sewed on the buttons.
The skirt(s) and blouse were much simpler and quicker. I drafted the skirt as a high-low half-circle on some black stretch velvet. And by drafted I mean, took a measuring tape and some chalk and and drew lines right on the fabric. I made a bunch of ruffle with some still-kinda-precious-to-me stretch mesh, and added various gathered bits until it started to look ok. There’s an underskirt of red mesh made much the same way, too. It was harder to let Syo help with this part, since I was flying by the seat of my pants. But it also didn’t take too long.
The blouse was both last and least. The pattern is just a peasant blouse from the late 70s, not unlike the 
Guys, I love this costume. Like I wish it were for me grade of love. None of the snapshots really do it justice—it deserves a proper photo shoot. Someday. 😂
Fall has been more or less glorious so far. We thanksgivinged. Our ridiculously big new dining room table got a workout. There was turkey, family, and good times aplenty. What there wasn’t was a lot of sewing time.
Maybe not my best idea ever, but it was definitely the feeling of accomplishment I needed!
This is my second attempt at a tent style dress. The first one 
This is essentially a T-shirt pattern, which means it was mercifully quick to sew up. Version one is a cozy French terry in a marled grey, which I feel like is a color that screams “curling up in comfort.” I made the basic long sleeve version, as you can see.
To my surprise, the pattern includes pockets! I’m not convinced they’re the best idea since I think they’ll weigh down the swishy side seams, but I included them in this version because I knew I’d enjoy having them, and this is the version meant for cozy comfort, not style.
Version 2 is in a very fun burnout velvet that doesn’t have quite enough stretch for the pattern. I let the sleeves out as much as I could, and I cut the neck band to the largest size (and then cut the neck hole larger to match.)
I went with the peep shoulder view because, fun. Although I confess I’m a little worried peep shoulder + tent silhouette are pretty trendy, in the sense that they’re probably both already passé. Screw it. It’s fun. And it’s not like I live in a fashion capital of the world.
I feel like it will be a very fun dress for the holidays.
Next up is Hallowe’en costumes. Though really what I feel like making are sweatshirts and cozy leggings. And that Vogue pattern. I just need to attach top and bottom halves and do buttonholes and other finishing details. I can do it.
I made up a version of Burda 6794, which promised easy summer comfort. I’m not very good at casual these days—I don’t have much chance for it. I’m not even really sure what I like, which is unsettling.
Anyway. I made up a super-quick version out of the scraps from my grey 
To be fair to Burda, this may have more to do with a certain drift in my own measurements rather than an issue with the pattern sizing.
Aside from the marginal fit, I didn’t make all the best choices in my construction. The button band would have benefited from interfacing. I opted to finish the upper edge with bias binding for a facing, which is not my best skill, and it would’ve been smarter all around to just line the entire bust section, since the striped fabric’s a trifle sheer.
On the other hand, I’ve still worn the snot out of it. Mainly because, as mentioned, my casual wardrobe is almost nonexistent. And it’s workable, just not quite right. But I think with a teeny bit of up-sizing, it’s a style I really like. Except of course summer is on its way out now so really I should be making some long-sleeved shirts instead.
In other news, the house is shaping up, but has been way more of a time suck than I expected. We refinished a floor, which may have been a mistake, but it’s done now, along with rather more painting than I had wanted to have happen.
And yes, it’s purple.
The sewing room is finally mostly set up. A lot more organization would be good, though. At work I'm highly organized. I'm not sure why I have such difficulty applying the same principles to my daily life. 
At the same time, I cut out a pair of 
Well, after sewing up the underwear in short order, I felt I should do something with the scant remaining remnant. Some experimentation revealed that yes, I could just barely get a version of Gertie's 
Mustard really isn't the best colour on me, but it's still a cute sleep set. (And I'm on vacation, which has really driven home how impoverished my casual wardrobe has become. ) And now that piece of fabric, at least, is totally gone. 
I actually skipped most of my usual fitting changes. I didn’t shorten the bodice, I didn’t sway back (maybe I should have, not for actual swayback fitting but to give a more authentic line), and given the narrow shoulder I didn’t square that. I did raise the underarm by about 1 cm, to make up for not shortening the bodice, and I stand by that decision.
The armscye is comfortably high and I can raise my arm quite well.
There are a couple of features of the dress that don’t show on the line drawing that I want to mention:
2) the front skirt is “eased” (aka lightly gathered) to the front bodice, which is rather period but also rather, um, enhancing of the five-month-pregnant look that is a frequent byproduct of the era. I wound up ripping off the skirt, smoothing out all gathers in this area (shifting the skirt side seam toward the back in the process ) and focusing all the gathering between the rear princess seams at the back. I’m tempted, looking at the pictures, to rip it off again and move the bodice gathering to centre front, too, but we’ll see how ambitious I get. I still pretty much look pregnant, mind you. But then I often do even in regular clothes, so I won’t fuss too much about that. 😂
Anyway, other than the looking-pregnant thing (maybe time to finish those white long stays I started before Hallowe’en) and the puffiness of the bodice gathers, there are two medium-grade issues:
2) the straight-hem problem. Because the embroidered hem is of necessity straight, while the pattern piece curved, the centre-front of the skirt is distinctly shorter, to the point where it shows a couple of inches of my petticoat. 
As I wasn’t entirely happy with the slightly blousy bodice, I made a quick lace-up-front vest to go with, which I do quite like. I used the dress bodice pattern pieces, but kept the original dart (which I converted to gathers in the dress) itself. I lowered the neckline a bit, which I like; were I to make the dress again I’d lower its neckline as well, as I don’t quite have the “popping out the top” effect that so many period illustrations seem to show. I used fabric left over from the coat, and some of the satin bias binding I’d made for the coat as well—using up nearly every scrap, in fact. So I’ll call that a win.
That pretty much sums up everything that needed to be said about the dress.
However, I’m vain, and Angel Jems took over 400 pictures, of which only about 300 of them have my hair doing something weird or me making wonky faces, so I’ll subject you to a few more, including some better shots of the coat.
We went all over the various parks north of the U of S campus, trying to find locations without too much obviously modern detritus. Railway tracks in the background are a little incongruous, I suppose.
I just really like this one.
The coat twirls most excellently.
There is a LOT of fabric in those back pleats.
I do wish there was a version or view of the full-length coat where the skirt met in the front. I couldn’t find any period examples of pelisses with a cutaway front like this. I mean, this coat is from the PPZ movie, so it had to be that way, and it wouldn’t be a hard pattern mod, but it would’ve been nice to just have it.
The day I finished the linen(ish) jersey 
Wanting a more typical riff on the handkerchief hem, I grabbed my 
Though I think my width was wider (basically the full width of the fabric, less whatever I lost trimming down the tattered selvedge.) I did this with 
Once that was cut, I didn’t have enough fabric left for full-length sleeves, so, 3/4 sleeves. Ah, well.
Tanit-Isis Sews 