Back to the Skirt

Not much today, but I want to get back in the habit of doing "something" every day to try to make some visible progress (eventually). Put the darts into these front and rear skirt pieces and then pinned them on Lucy to think about possible adjustments to the patterns.

Oops, one side should have been folded over along the top edge a bit more and pinned a little lower, but I was distracted by Penguins fighting on TV. I'll mark the guidelines for the "placket" closure before taking these back off.

Got a good match of the various points on this side of the front. That is, the side seam of the skirt matching the side seam of the form, and the darts lining up with each other and the princess seam of the form.

On the other side, you can see that the front piece is overall correct. The side seam matches the side seam of the form with the rest of the waist pinned in place. However, the bodice and skirt darts don't match up. It feels like the skirt dart is closest to the princess seam of the form, while the bodice dart goes a little over to the side seam side of things. The overall bodice piece also matches the form fine, and with the ruffles on, this shouldn't be visible, but I'm sure I'll mess with it again before I'm done for psychological reasons at least.

The length of the skirt section also needs to be determined. With the ruffles going over it, it technically doesn't need to be that long. But even though no one will ever wear it, I'm still going to set it long enough to cover Lucy's backside, if she had one...

Akari's Back

Today I put the back pieces on the new Akari bodice. Before starting, I realized that I had already put the band on the front. Next time, I imagine I will make the band up in one piece and add it after the sides/backs go on.

The heavy 12" shears are probably overkill, but I still like them for trimming all the layers of the seam allowances. Since the side/back pieces are also underlined, they had enough weight to them to match up okay with the front section, just by folding over and pressing them. The separating zipper was added similar to on the Misato (Not) by Chanel jacket, with the one sided presser foot.

I tried to sew things "tight". That is, to err to the inside of the sewing line. This mostly went well, though I did come up not quite skin tight on the sides. Even though there should be additional bones added to the side and back seams, it still needs to be a touch tighter coming around the sides, given that this is basically a corset.

Next step will be to add the skirt base for the ruffles. I have pieces drawn up based on my best guess as to where on the bodice I want it to sit.

Akari Returns

Finally I got a chance to get in some sewing today. I've been spending my little free time between shoveling snow and other fun stuff studying Japanese, but I can feel my brain getting full. Maybe tomorrow I'll make a review to be sure I'm really remembering everything.

There was already a pile of pattern pieces on the ironing board based on the next theoretical construction plan. For these, I cut two of each front and side/back pieces and then a band to go along the top. The two each were so they could be sewn up as underlined pieces. Of course, both pieces are just muslin here, but it's the thought that counts.

The underlining test is mainly for the front, since that is the one with all the darts. Ecru thread on unbleached muslin isn't the best for photography, so some of these pictures may stink. Underlining involves basting the two pieces of fabric together and them working them as a single piece. First, the pieces were outlined and then the darts also basted together. I had read competing articles on how to baste the darts together, but what I went with was to baste the two legs.

Despite the thread becoming invisible, it was easy to feel on both sides as I was basting the darts together with the green silk thread.

For this round, I'm going back to my previous theory about making a band along the top edge of the bodice that would then attach to lining pieces on the inside. Based on the bodice pieces, I drew up some pattern pieces for this. The side and center back parts are individual pieces but for the front, I darted this single piece up.

The band piece was basted on with the contrasting silk thread. Thread basting this long waving edge instead of using pins really makes life easier on the sewing machine. The sewing line of course goes back and forth, but also at this point, the pieces are darted which makes them not flat anymore.

Usually I would end up using a lot of pins to keep all the lines lined up and account for the 3D nature of the fabric. Getting them out while steering on the machine ends up being a distraction and you can end up with puckers sewn in or some drunken sewing lines. If you ran off outside of where the sewing line should have been, it's not so bad to go back and resew that section but if you went inside of it, then you get to practice your seam ripper skills.

Once the band was sewn on, the seam allowances were trimmed and clipped. Then the twisting and turning of the ham and seam roll got under way to help press out that edge.

The seam allowances were pressed towards the band. I think this picture is beforehand, but the band was then pick stitched to the underlying seam allowances.

The cased steel bones from a previous test were transferred to the long darts of this front bodice. Because there is an underlining layer, the bones are only stitched to that, so that the stitching doesn't show on the outside of the garment.

Trying the front bodice on Lucy, I found all the points lined up well. With that small triangle shaved off this side of the pattern piece, I finally have it matching all of Lucy's seams.

Up next, I will put on the side back and center back pieces, including a separating zipper for a closure. Also, I have "skirt" sections that will go over the lower portion of the bodice per my previous post about taking this section in more of a Grace Kelly direction. The skirt will be attached to the bodice, and the rear closure will just be an overlap that snaps closed. This piece will end up being the base for the ruffles (maybe).

Atogaki

The single-volume of The Garden of Words manga arrived today. I knew it was out for delivery and had seen the mail carrier coming so I went out to the mailbox to wait for it. But following this morning's snow, the sun had come out and the snow was melting and falling off the trees. I tried to stand far enough to one side to miss most of it, but of course, just before I got back to the house, a big pile fell right on my head. Well, I was just happy the package had finally arrived!

A really nice color cover. The majority of the book is as it appeared in Afternoon, with the color pages up front and then the rest in B&W. The manga in the magazine had a little something past the movie, and the book has a few extra pages. I'm only up to 30 kanji so far, so it will take some time to translate them.

I've been getting better at telling the difference between shi and tsu and so and n in katakana, but here I'm working on reading someone's handwriting. The small size of some of this isn't helping and again making me miss my Optivisor. I'm trying to make out what it says under Yukino and Takao's names but I'm just going to have to work through likely suspects until I get something translate-able. Arigato gozaimasu!

Also in this shipment, I got the "Promise" CD by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra, performing Tenmon's songs from Shinkai's movies.

Did I not take a picture of the front? Well, here's one of the back.

Inside, there is the CD on one side...

And a booklet on the other...

The booklet has pages on Tenmon, Shinkai, and the Orchestra, as well as pages about each of the movies and the selected songs.

Amazon and itunes have the album which may be the easier way to get the music if you don't need the booklet to satisfy your collector's urges.

From A to N

Pardon my pencilmanship.

Now I have the katakana down too and can read the title of this "magazine" I've been buying!

Thread Tails

That's about it for this round of pillowcases! I ended up with 27, instead of 30 as I expected. I could swear I lost some bands since I remember having an equal number of bands and body pieces. But I wouldn't trust my memory on that.

One was lost to a seam gone "slightly" off line, and one was lost to the dreaded hitting a pin with the serger knife. No damage to the knives though, thank goodness. Now I have about 100 thread tails to tuck in and then turn them out for a final pressing before sending them off.

With the holiday coming up, I'm hoping to get back to the Akari project. I've also just started working on the katakana, but if they go as fast as the hiragana, I'll need to start finding my next textbook.

Kumihimo

While looking for something else, I came across some old books that I can use to practice reading Japanese. I used to do some kumihimo, though my takadai loom has been knocked down for a while, to make room for my industrial sewing machine, the Juki DDL-8700.

Here's a picture of a takadai from one of Makiko Tada's books. You can see how the individual warp threads are wound on bobbins which are separated by blocks with pegs on each of the four arms. Depending on the braid, you might use anywhere from nine to 68 bobbins, on two or four arms. The tou is used to open sheds in the warps and pass the bobbins through from side to side and upper versus lower arms.

The shelf that the tou sits on can be used to hold bobbins, braiding patterns or whatever, and I have also seen photographs of ladies sitting in seiza on it braiding away. If my loom had this shelf, I'd be afraid to sit on it, since I'm sure I have a few pounds on the average braider...

Most of my books are for the takadai. I do have a marudai but most of my interest when I started was in flat braids so it's hardly been used.

This old sageo was made out of several shades of pearl cotton. Not as fancy as silk, but it was the easiest thing to get a range of colors in at the time.

I believe this was the pattern. Made with 46 bobbins, you can see the graduated colors of bobbins detailed on the right.

While there are 46 bobbins, the braiding just involves repeating four moves.

The zig-zag lines represent the shed to be opened with the tou. You then take the given bobbin and move it to the end point indicated.

As you can see on the cover of the top book, more complicated patterns are possible. Here's one for Tombow pencil fans!

This is another sample from one of the books, called Kaen.

Once you get into these braids that aren't just regular repetitions but can be pictures, writing, or whatever you want within the "resolution" levels possible given the braid structure, then you'll have to step up to one of these charts.

It's not as scary as it looks! It's just another way of stating which bobbins go where as you braid. There are more ways to move the bobbins than something simple like the Kainokuchi-gumi pattern above, but it's not so much difficult as it is slower, given that you can't just mindlessly throw bobbins back and forth.

The nice thing about these books is most of them are in Japanese with English translations. That will be helpful for me in learning Japanese, though it was still a bit daunting back when I was trying to puzzle this all out to actually make braids.

There's a book by Rodrick Owen in English that was a big help in really getting going with these more complicated drafts. It looks like it's out of print now, though. Many books you find on kumihimo are for the marudai but this one was for the takadai. He also has a program called TakaDraft that you can use to plan these kinds of braids. The program has a blank version of the template above and you fill in the stitches, after you set the number of bobbins and colors desired. Then the program fills in the moves needed, like this...

This program still seems to be available, though it wouldn't be much help until you've taken the leap to get a takadai. The marudai is cheaper to get into, especially with the braiding discs and similar less fancy options available, but in my case, I specifically wanted to make these flat braids, so I had to go for the takdai.

The Garden of Words Manga, Final Chapter

Fortunately I took a chance on the next issue of Afternoon magazine, since the last chapter of The Garden of Words manga was in there. I also got an extra copy of the 5 Centimeters Per Second novel to use for a reading copy, now that I can start trying to read it!

"No one knocks off Old Tony"

Looks like we'll get 23 pillowcases out of the pile of fabric. I spent some time this weekend ripping bands and body lengths out of the yardage and prepping them for construction. I ironed the bands into the folded over shape and got about ten tags on. There are exactly enough tags left for the remaining bands too. Given that the pillowcases are made by just three passes on the serger, they should be done in plenty of time for Thanksgiving.

Pardon my pencilmanship.

Also this week, I finally went ahead and bought a couple books on the Japanese language. So far, I have learned 37 of the 46 basic hiragana. A through ya, plus the wa, so I could write the title above. I've been looking at all these things I couldn't read before and now I can make a few things out, but mostly can read character-???-character-character-???-character. Some I can puzzle out from the hints, Wheel of Fortune style. Some, like Ho-Shi-No-Ko-E and the above, I now know enough to recognize that much. There's a lot more where that came from, but at least it's a start!

Mass Production Pillowcases, Holiday Edition

Thanks to another deal, I was able to lay in this new supply of fabric for pillowcases for the Shriner's hospital. Depending on how much the fabric shrinks in pre-washing, I should be able to get up to 25 pillowcases out of it. With Thanksgiving being way at the end of the month, that gives me three weekends to finish them, even if I don't get as much time for them during the weekdays.

Voices of a Distant Star, the Novel

This novelization of Voices of a Distant Star (Hoshi no Koe), came today. It was supposed to be in a shipment with the next issue of Da Vinci magazine, with the next chapter of the Garden of Words novelization, but that one got cancelled as unavailable. Then I saw it back in stock and tried to order it again, but that was also eventually cancelled. After looking around online, I'm not sure what happened since other places that had it listed never seemed to have it available either. Hopefully some day it will be put out in one book, like the manga version.

This cover is so shiny, I had to try not to include myself in its reflection!

I think I can read something about "Words of Love" and something along the lines from the movie that this mail will take one year to reach you, I wonder if you'll forget about me, Noboro-kun. That section is mostly hiragana. I have some more hiragana quizzes to do in the book, but then on to katakana next week.

Akari Shinohara Meets Grace Kelly

Time again to rethink the Akari dress project following the results of the last test. Reviewing the book (Grace Kelly: Icon of Style to Royal Bride), I noticed a couple things that I think I will incorporate into the next tests. As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been trying to balance making this dress use Grace Kelly dress construction "theory" with Akari dress appearance, making arbitrary decisions about what's "correct". Now I'm going to lean more towards the Grace Kelly construction and the first thing to go is the button closure from the Akari.

Keep in mind that one difference between the Akari and Grace Kelly dresses is that Grace Kelly bodice/underbodice unit opens in front, while the Akari closes in back. The Grace Kelly has a two part front that opens, while my Akari pattern has a single front piece and opens at center back.

This picture got me thinking about the bodice I've been working on for the Akari. So far, it's basically been a corset, but at some point, it was going to have to have something added to the bottom. Since I hadn't decided on how to do the skirts, I hadn't worried too much about it. For the next round, I'll add on the charmeuse slip section.

The slip section might start higher than I was previously thinking. Originally, I was thinking of attaching something at the "hip" line below, but now I'm considering shortening the bodice to the "Mid" line and starting the slip at that point.

Alternately, I might leave the bodice the current length, but attach the slip starting at the Mid line, to give it  more stability on the body. I don't know if it will matter, given the other structural components, like the boning and wide petersham "belt", but will probably keep it hip length.

Looking at this picture, there is a separating zipper for the closure.

While sketching things out, I was wondering how to  put a slip on the bottom of the bodice and have a separating zipper. The solution I think will be as mentioned in the notes (snap closure). The slip section will start above the lowest part of the bodice (and bottom end of the zipper) and the rear seam will have an overlapping, placket type section. That section will have a snap closure which when opened, will allow access to the  zipper. This will allow the rear opening to be large enough to step into, while also being able to have a finished looking closure.

Thread Tracing in Action

There's a new pile of Misato (Not) by Chanel test pieces on the ironing board. While tracing all these out, I discovered I have lost my thimble. I usually don't spend that much time in a row pushing the needle with my finger, but this time I was feeling it.

I'm not sure if I'm not using smaller stitches for marking than necessary, though on these curved edges I didn't want to lose too much of the shape in the dash-dash-dashing. The magnetic pin holder came in handy for finding a dropped needle in the carpet. Much faster than waiting til I step on it.

Here's a shoulder being basted to a front. It looks a little wavy since you have to match  a curved edge to a straight-ish edge. The visible markings on both sides of both pieces does make matching things up that much faster.

And here it is after a trip to the sewing machine and before pressing. The other benefit to this method is no pins on the sewing machine. You're not supposed to sew over pins, but I may have done that once or twice. I don't think I've ever broken a needle, but I've bent the hell out of some pins. All fun and games until someone puts an eye out though.

Also, on these fiddly matches, I either leave the pins in too long and have to try to get it out from under the presser foot which clamps down pretty hard on it, or I remove it too soon and the sewing lines shift randomly in the middle of a seam. Throw in the time to get up and get the pin holder off the board where I pinned stuff up - after getting set up on the sewing machine - and basting with thread is going on the list of "Things I'm not sure why I've never done before".

Thread Tracing

Realizing that at some point, constructing these garments can't involve me drawing on muslin with a pencil, I started trying thread tracing. Somehow I've never used thread tracing, but here we go. I think I'll like it since it shows on both sides. Since I'm marking sewing lines rather than using the cut edge of the fabric as a guide, it makes it easier to line up adjoining pieces and see the sewing line.

Most of my thread is ecru or whiter, but in the closet I had an assortment of Clover silk thread in dark colors. Amazon sells these six spool assortments and I have several of the two white/two black/two "winter white" boxes on standby. The price on these is a little higher now ($21-22) but if you look at camelcamelcamel, you can see an average price of about $17 and a low of $14 for the black and white assortment. I'd wait til it goes back down again before getting more.

Before I started, I traced out some fresh pattern pieces on paper and cut them to the sewing line instead of just generally around them as before. The paper piece is laid on the fabric and running stitches made around it. At corners, they say to exit at the corner point, turn and come back out at the corner point heading in the next direction. Probably easier to just look at it here. The paper is shifting away but I'll use the ol' blue tape to hold it in place next time.

You get the idea.

Eventually you end up with something like this. The dart's not marked here but you can see the shape of one of the front pieces of the Misato (Not) by Chanel jacket taking shape.

The Garden of Words, Final Chapter?

The Garden of Words manga showed up again today. As usual, I've put the pictures on the original post. Yesasia used a FedEx service for shipping it, and once it was picked up from them, it was to my door in three days from HK. We'll see if that is a fluke, since I have the next Da Vinci awaiting shipment.

Still, this is supposed to be the last chapter for the manga. Since I can't read it, I'll assume either news reports were wrong or that it's ending similarly to the 5 Centimeters Per Second manga. The online translator on this post of the Garden of Words FB page is unclear to me whether this picture is from a final chapter in Afternoon magazine, or just an ad for an upcoming book with all six(?) chapters. This appears to be the book but so far further searches by ISBN and all that doesn't turn up any good pictures yet. It's out in a few weeks, so I'm on standby.

Well, the news reports were wrong, so see the main Garden of Words post for the latest update.

Tombow Centennial Pencil Set

Tombow has a set of drawing pencils out for their 100th anniversary, in old school form and packaging. I love fancy packaging and had read these might be Mono 100s so I figured it's a hell of a deal for $15 if true (and okay if not).

They came in a padded envelope and when I opened the envelope it smelled fantastic! My latest batch of Black Warriors have very nice leads, but they don't seem to have any real wood smell.

On to the packaging!

A heavy paper sleeve, that includes "TOMBOW 100HB" in the fine print on the back. Is that as in Mono 100 or 100th Anniversary? In the words of Paul Reubens, I don't know!

Inside is a nice metal box, which I'm sure will get refilled with Black Warriors at some point. The Tombows all seem to come in fancy boxes, so you don't need to keep them for refills of the same.

Just in case you didn't read the sleeve or the front of the box, there's still time to find out what's in the box.

In case of what?

If it's not Colt, it's just a copy!

Almost to the pencils! Please and thank you!

The pencils are held separate from each other with a little insert. I imagine these will still work with round pencils if I keep them nice.

Thank you Carl!

Oh no! More writing I can't read! Okay, it's just the back side of the insert above.

I actually bought more than one box so I don't have to feel bad about using some of them up and to be able to save some to sell on the 200th anniversary for $1,000,000 which will probably be worth about $15 in today's money.