The Prize Play Cotte: Part 2

[sasha_sews]

...continued from Part 1

EDIT: This entry updated as of 3/8/08 @ 1:00 pm to add pictures and details.


So it's the next day, Roger is on a plane to Chicago and I am musing on my week-long adventure in "Holy Crap I Haven't Sewn in YEARS and Now I Need to Make a Cotte" creativity.

I just finished editing Part 1 to make things a bit more clear than my tired and rambling musings last night.

So, I left off at "Oh My God It's Time To Make the Final Copy."

One of the things that always causes me problems when I'm reading through costuming/sewing/garb diaries is that these lovely and dedicated seamstresses (who are obviously very experienced) forget that we the audience don't always know the 'should be obvious things' like:

Okay. Now I have all of these pieces of fabric, and I know how it should end up. How the hell do I put them all together?!

First I started with the wool - I made a white chalk X on the 'wrong side' of the fabric so I wouldn't have to spend endless amounts of time each step pf the way feeling up the fabric trying to make sure I was sewing on the correct side. I sewed the back pieces together, one seam, right up the middle. Then I added the gores. (Two triangles, 14" wide and 26" tall and 28" on the diagonal, FYI the wide part goes at the bottom. *G*) When I was trimming the pattern down from my pinning, I made a note of where I wanted the gores to fit in (at the waist) to provide that lovely drape on the sides. When I cut out the final pieces I cut little ^ points so I could attach the triangle directly to that point, rather than risk attaching them from the bottom up and having all my gores uneven. (because I do things like that, and was doing a lot of guesswork here.)

(Um. Do I need to mention that you cut the ^ outside of your seam allowance, so if this is the edge of your fabric | then the cut looks like this |> Just in case anyone was wondering and was too afraid to ask. :)

Then I attached the second set of gores to the front panels (again, using my ^ markers).

Then I ironed all of my seams flat. Because I learned somewhere along the way that this relatively painless if slightly time consuming step is not one to skip. Because nothing is gonna lay right later, and your seams will start to bunch as you go on.

Then I attached the shoulders, and then the line from armpit to hem. (and ironed the seams flat) I now had a complete shell, with two gores on each side, and the 'shape' was already showing on the body.

Aaaand...then I followed the exact same process with the linen. Woot.

Then I took a break.

TIP: Always always always PIN everything before you sew it up. You can either take the time to do that, or spend entirely too much focus and effort making sure it all lines up WHILE you sew and run the risk of discovering you sewed things backwards or it doesn't line up right. (Which I haven't done in YEARS because I learned to PIN long long ago.)


So. Now was the point where I made my fatal error that reduced me to tears at 8:20 pm last night. I was going to make the sleeves with the open forearms and buttons up the back. And while I *KNOW* that I should finish the sleeves BEFORE attaching them (because this is a lined garment and turning gets interesting the further you go) for whatever dumb-assed reason I thought it would be easier to attach the sleeves first and then finish them, and then turn them through the unfinished collar.

So I attached the sleeves. And then sewed up the front seams, linen to wool, and ironed it flat. It looked so nice.

I attached the collar, linen only (because the linen was the outside layer) and left the two layers of wool unattached. (Once I hemmed the cotte I would turn the whole thing through the collar.)

At this point I decided to go ahead and finish the sleeves. I made a circle that was totally closed off and unable to turn, I cried, Roger bought me Snickers. I ripped out the seams, sewed each sleeve closed and turned the whole thing right side out.

Then I started on the button holes (because by this point it was late and I was bored and doing things in random order was my only excitement.)

I made three and decided to hem.

Put the cotte on Roger, marked the right line. Cut the 3-4 inches off. Turned it wrong side out. Sewed the line. Hooray!

So now I had to turn everything back to rights, and hand-stitch the wool lining of the collar down. That wasn't nearly as sucktastic as I thought it'd be.

And then I had to deal with the still open cuffs of the sleeves. But I'm not going to talk about that here. Because it was traumatic and I will never ever make that mistake again. As soon as Roger gets home I'm taking the sleeves out and putting in correct ones, with buttons and everything. And taking the collar off that I set dead center instead of slightly offset to account for the buttons. Meh.

This was my ultimate solution to my nasty sleeve problem. It looks fine. But it's not what I wanted, and it looks slipshod to me so I will do an entry as I fix them.

Easy enough things to fix, and if I'd had an extra day I would have. But I ran out of time and it looks just fine as long as you aren't inspecting things right up close. Meh again.

(I'll fix it next week. Because I want it *right*)

So I ironed the whole thing, flattened out all the seams, finished the buttonholes, tossed on the buttons, and didn't manage to finish the hood. :( Woe. But it wasn't important, merely something fun I would have liked to finish. (I'm going to finish it anyway, because it is preeeeeetty.)

And once I've got some pictures taken, and I'm less sleep deprived I'll come back and edit this entry too. But for now I'm going to take a nap. Hooray naps.

Picture!

Comments

[jafael.livejournal.com]

Sounds very impressive! Looking forward to the pictures!

[sasha-sews.livejournal.com]

It's really pretty. When he gets home I'm going to take pictures of it how it is now, and then do an entry on the sleeves when I fix them and then do pictures of the corrected cotte. :)