I went to see Sharon this afternoon, four muslins in hand. Three of them were reasonably successful, but we looked at the coat and concluded that it was simply too large. The coat pattern drafting instructions were created for coats in colder climates, where a coat would be worn over a jacket or a sweater – but here, in California, it’s likely only worn over a T-shirt or blouse, and so needs less ease. Also, the collar (a wide, round collar with stand) doesn’t work. I will redraft that pattern from the base jacket pattern, once we finish correcting it.
The jacket with the shawl collar fared somewhat better. The back, as before, turned out great. The front required some adjusting – the shoulder seam needed to be moved, and a few minor tweaks. The sleeves were a total disaster, and Sharon completely redrafted the sleeve cap for me. She warned me that it might be too tight now, but we can always fix that in the next go-round. We both agreed that we liked the collar.
Here is a pic of the jacket, with collar:
The plan is to use a white-on-black Celtic braid fabric, which looks silver-and-black because of the visual blending, with a black leather collar. Something like this, in fact:
It won’t be quite like this, because the real-life braid will be slightly larger-scale: I think this sample was sett at either 72 or 96 epi and the actual fabric will be sett at only 60 epi or so. But it’s a good first approximation.
I did feel, however, that this design was lacking in tension: because the primary values are gray and black, it just didn’t feel very exciting to me. Sharon had a brilliant idea: add some white piping around the edges of the collar:
See how that ups the value contrast and hence the drama of the piece?
The current plan is to put the white piping around the outer edges of the shawl collar, and on down the center front. Also to add cuffs (in black suede, of course!) with white piping around the edges.
This is now sounding suspiciously like an Art Piece rather than a casual T-shirt for office wear. It’s a good thing you all know me, or you might be surprised or something. 🙂
Plan for tomorrow is to run a bunch of errands, finish my dress form cover (so I can use the dress form!), and install my new Fireside rolling temple on my loom! The pieces arrived today and I can’t wait to get them on the loom, so I can see if it works on my AVL Workshop Dobby Loom.
I’ll probably also redraft the jacket pattern, too, and may modify and redo the palazzo pants pattern, if I’m feeling ambitious. I probably won’t get to the kimono jacket pattern, which works pretty well (it’s dead simple) but does require a few modifications.
Off to bed! Tomorrow is a whole new (and exciting!) day.
