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.