How To: Men's Suit Jacket to Women's Blazer

How to turn a men's suit jacket into a women's blazer. It's a lot less scary than it sounds.

I've been putting this project off for a while now due to being a busy lady with a job, college and customers so it's just been waiting for me to have an impromptu day off. I was given this suit jacket by a friend of mine along with a herringbone winter coat. I was told to sell on the coat, but I had to do something for myself with the jacket. I am quite a little lady but with odd proportions (large chest and hips, small waist and a grand total of 5" tall!) so almost every jacket I buy needs to be altered at least a little bit. I love suit jackets, but never find one that fits well. I thought this jacket I had been gifted would be the perfect one to tailor to my exact needs.

So, the goals I wanted to achieve:

1. Make it shorter, so the jacket stops just below my waist. This means it'd look nice with a shirt and jeans as well as the occasional dress! 
2. Make the sleeves permanently folded. This involves making them shorter so that there is not so much bulk at the elbows.
3. Possibly take out the shoulder padding, but I think I like the quite feminine shape mixed with the square shoulder.

 This is how the jacket started out. I tried it on to get a feel of what it was I wanted to change. As you can see, it's already shaped nicely around the waist which means I will not have to take it to pieces to take it in at the sides like I would if the lines were straight. If you needed to do this, you'd open an inside lining seam and turn the jacket inside out, mark the adjustments to the shape you wanted, stitch then turn it all the right way round again before sewing the lining back up. It's essentially the last three or four steps of the Waistcoat post about working with a lined garment. I marked on the jacket where I wanted it to come to a stop, just about on my hips. After making with chalk, I cut carefully making sure it was level all the way round. I was careful to keep the pocket linings intact as I cut close to them, so as not to add more jobs to the list. This jacket is also brilliant in that it features a lot of top stitching so the actual sewing work on this jacket will be a breeze! Once I had adjusted the length, the sleeves were looking a bit odd, so I decided to take them up as well. I measured from my shoulder seam to my elbow, then added 2 inches to create a 1 inch turn up. I like colour of the inside lining, but may change it out for some red at a later date, or maybe even some of the same leopard print as my upcoming wiggle dress. That's all the work that I had to do on this jacket so far, messing about with the idea of changing the shape of the shoulders a little, but I do like them padded and square.

Boyfriend Blazer from TopShop: £40

Men's suit jacket from a charity shop: £5ish
An afternoon and a new, well-fitted, spot-on jacket: Priceless.

Steampunk Poison Ivy: Part 1

The Steampunk Poison Ivy outfit is almost complete! Photos of the completed project will be in the last part of the SPI series!

So, let's start with the shorts. The customer provided me with her measurements, which I then used to draft out a pattern for the shorts. I've made shorts before, to the process was quite quick and simple. It was just a case of making sure there was an extension for closure on the front pieces but not on the back. I decided to do a split waistband, in black and green to tie in the bustle bit at the back. The edges on the bustle are unfinished, since I love how they look all frayed. 

Once the shorts and the front half of the waistband were cut out, I began the bustle section at the back of the shorts. Made of green satin, I cut twice the length I required by the depth of the fabric. This gives me plenty of fabric to work with. Using the gathering technique of two lines of stitches, I gathered the top edge to the right size of the back of the shorts. Once the top had been gathered, I used the same technique to gather up the bustle panel, offsetting the lines of gather each time.

In the next part, I'll be assembling the shorts, inserting the bustle panel and starting the bodice!

Steampunk Poison Ivy

Shortly after New Year, a customer contacted me with some reference photographs for a steampunk version of the character Poison Ivy. Hoping to start studying Production Costumes at Edinburgh at the end of the year, I gladly accepted the challenge.
The customer gave me photographs she'd found of other people's work and had high-lighted what she wanted changing and what she really loved about each one. Using this information, we worked on a design sketch. In the end, all we did was change the shades of green involved in the piece, and how the bodice fastens.

Photographs of the work will be uploaded once it's all complete, which should be in the next 10 days or so! Keep your eye out for updates.

Make This Look: The Baba-blue Dress COMPLETED!

And here is it, in its beautiful tartan glory. It's soft and comfortable and in a messy bedroom! (I promise that at a later date, I'll take some better photographs when I get some time!

I was right, making this dress was definitely the correct thing to do. I am really happy with it. I used poppers instead of buttons which has made it really easy to wear. I stopped about 6 inches above the hem but at some point I'll add a few more poppers to make it fasten all the way to the bottom. I'm also not too pleased with how the bodice is shaped so I'll be adding some ribbon to create a waist belt like the inspiration dress had, by sewing ribbon into the darts. The collar could use some stiffener, but for the first attempt in what is likely to be MANY versions of this dress, I love it. Here's just the dress:

It looks quite school girl or uniform-like, so I might have to make some adaptations to fix that. I'd like to sort a version with essentially a really heavily gathered skirt so I can wear a petticoat underneath too! Undecided as to whether or not to make these in sizes to sell, or keep them as a commission only option for customers, since I'm sure others will love it as much as I do!

The next version will be in tweed and burgundy, and will be made before my next trip to Edinburgh in February so you'll all have to wait with baited breath!

Inspiration, Pinterest and Mugler

Inspiration is the key to most creative pursuits and can be found in many places. I like to use a combination of the outside world and other people's work as points for drawing inspiration.

The world really is a beautiful place, and it's easy to draw inspiration from it. As is well published in places all over the internet, I adore the city of Edinburgh. Despite being home to many people who are important to me, the colours of the city are wonderful. There are shades of stone and brick covered in an ooze of grey and black. The way that the evidence of industrial dust edges the bricks gave me oodles of inspiration toward my own works. Take notice of colours that occur in nature and the world that surrounds you, as they are often the most useful ones to use in collections and projects.

Another way of getting inspiration is studying the work of others in your field. In costumes and fashion, I am spoiled with a wealth of designers and illustrators of different varieties using different media and all getting different looks. This is another good time to mention Pinterest. All right, so it's also full of cookie recipes and a million things to do with empty toilet rolls, but it is also incredible for finding images that you like and storing them all in one place. I am currently a little bit obsessed with pin-up models and Vintage styles, and boy does that become apparent when browsing through my pages on Pinterest.
Looking at the work of others should be done in a critical way, not just an overall like of the piece. For example, a dress is not just a dress. A dress is a bodice and a skirt, it's sleeves or straps, it's thick hems, patterned fabric, plain fabric, odd colours, nice colours, bright, dark, rough, smooth... The list goes on and on forever. You can like a piece of work in so many ways, and identifying why you like it is a large chunk of coming up with your own ideas. For example, whilst looking for fashion illustrations, I stumbled upon a book about Thierry Mugler. It contained working drawings like this:

I fell instantly in love with the images, but for several reasons. I love the idea of distorting the models unrealistically to both shock the audience and display the details of the garment. I also really adore the impossibly tiny waists and massive 80's shoulders and hips. Identifying things like that is the best way to create your own work based on the influence of others. 

Don't think too hard.

Find things that you love and explore them.

Create your own work, don't carbon copy others.

Making Patterns: Reverse Engineering

I've been asked recently by several people to write about making and reading patterns. I sat and had a think about how I do it, and it took me ages to pinpoint since with an engineering background, a lot of the planning and drawing stages of garment construction are second nature. I thought it'd be useful to list how I go from a per-existing garment like a dress that I adore to a pattern that I can use again and again. There has been a little bit of pattern work in previous posts, so it might be worth a look back through the blog to have a check.

So, firstly, I like to place the existing garment on a dress form. If you don't have a dress form, you can make your own by putting on a loose fitting old t-shirt, then getting an assistant to wrap you up in duct tape, then cut you out of it all! Once it's on a dress form, carefully pin pattern paper (or tissue paper, or pattern tissue, or pieces of A4 taped together!) onto each panel of your garment along the hem to the next panel. Waistcoats tend to be three panels, and dress bodices tend to be three as well. Once you've pinned, carefully mark the panel edges, effectively tracing off the panel. Repeat for as many panels as the garment has, and then add seam allowances and make whatever adaptations you'd like, such as extra darts or less length.

Working from an existing pattern is simple, once you've had a practice. I started with a simple pattern for a 1950's dress, which took me an afternoon to make, even as an absolute beginner. When you open a commercial pattern, it has instructions with it that explain what all the marks and notes mean, and if it is a pattern that includes variations, it'll tell you which pieces you need to make what. Some patterns have a difficulty rating depending on the company that makes them and if they don't, I have always checked the reviews on the internet. Assuming you can understand basic sewing terms, you can use a commercial pattern with relative ease.

Got a question relating to patterns? Shout it out.

Freelance Work

I've only just started freelance work, but gosh do I love it! I love being able to sew someone else's work and get paid for it. I especially love how it expands my own portfolio in the process. If it hadn't been for sewing in Ava's Apparel and a mixture of freelance work in some form or another, my stitching portfolio would be teeny tiny!

Recently, I started using a website to manage my freelance side of things. It's pretty useful. You list your skills and update your portfolio of work then bid for jobs by offering quotes to others. So for example, a lady has just needed a seamstress for a shirt, I offered to do it at £8/hr which is my usual rate, and when she accepted it turned out she had ongoing work for me! If you include your price on your profile, buyers can also contact you. I had a lady contact me about children's jeans the other day, just because my price and skills were attractive. The method of personal message communication is easy and involves options at the side, so that invoices can be sent and paid really quickly, right from the message screen.

You can also place offers for hourlies, so I can sew your jeans up to the right length for £5 in 1 hour etc. It's a useful little earner too, from what I can gather.

The only downside really that I can see for freelance via websites is the 15% commission that they take. But then, for work that I wouldn't have had otherwise and things to add to my portfolio for getting into University, I can't really complain too much about that! I think in response to this, I'll just raise my hourly fee by 15%, and then I don't lose anything.

Want to have a go yourself?
The website in question is People Per Hour and it is a bit addictive, so watch out.