Journey into Construction

I have previously posted about designing an outfit that would fit in with the Asgardian culture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is how I made it.

The pattern for my Asgardian outfit is based on McCall’s 3129 for the body. The grey swathes were draped. I hemmed them by hand and then sewed them to the body by hand because I didn’t think machine sewing would look nice or allow me the control I wanted over placement.

The back swathes are trimmed with gold faux leather. As well as being decorative this weights the swathes so they move nicely.

Because the faux leather doesn’t heal pinholes the way fabric does, I held it in place for sewing with bobby pins.

What I hadn’t thought of in my design (because drawn fabric will sit however you want it to) was how to make the front swathes fitting. At first I tried darts and, while they worked on the muslin, the real thing didn’t take them so well. It turned out a pleat worked just fine.

The swathes are sewn into the side and shoulder seams but not the sleevehole because I wanted to have a layered effect as is often found in Asgardian clothes.

I copied the construction of my hood from Sif’s in Thor and it turned out to be much simpler than other hoods I have made before. You start with a rectangle and put in two pleats at the centre back.

To put the outfit on, the two front swathes unzip at the side seams.

I had trouble finding the zips for this outfit because I needed jacket zips with metal teeth, with the slide the same colour as the teeth, and the colour had to look gold. Turns out zips with gold teeth but a silver slide are a thing?? Eventually I found some that were the way I wanted. They only came in various lengths of Way Too Long but that was alright because I could cut them to length and I needed enough to make trim as well.

The sleeves are attached to the outfit by functional zips. The zip ends overlap at the back.

The shape of the sleeve was largely determined by how they zip fitted in the armhole, which actually took a lot of hassle out of trying to make the sleeve pattern fit just so.

To make the patchwork sections of the sleeve, I stitched together the design I wanted into a rectangle and then cut out the shape I wanted for the lower part of the sleeve.

I sewed the upper and lower sections together and put the zip trim over the top.

The vambraces have a strip of black stretch fabric on the inside instead of a closure. This makes them easy to get on and off, and even though it looks a bit weird bit to me, it is not inconsistent with Asgardian styles.

Photos of the finished outfit are here.





Movie images belong to Marvel Studios.

For Asgard!

One of my favourite things about the Marvel movies is the costume design for Asgardian culture. They are a bit traditional fantasy and a bit sci-fi and, while each character has their own look, they also have a consistency between them so they look like they come from the same culture.

I wanted to see if I could design an outfit that would fit into that culture. I did have to make one allowance for the limitations of Midgard: zips. Asgardian clothing tends to appear and disappear by magic (and movies have their own brand of costuming magic). I don’t think zips are too out of place on Asgardian clothing as they don’t have the same technological limitation that most medieval-fantasy cultures have and they use trim that looks like zipper teeth tracks.

I had been very taken with Sif’s coat, which is onscreen for maybe three minutes of the first Thor movie, so my design was primarily inspired by that. Or rather mostly inspired by the general impression of that, because I have had no end of difficulty finding decent images of it.

 This was the start of my design (back view):

The angle of the underlayer came from the back of Loki’s coat from The Avengers. I played around with having decorative seams but decided it would be too hidden and so not worth the trouble.

The gold bands on the bottom of the grey swathes on my outfit are also an idea borrowed from Loki’s coat.

Another aspect I took from Sif’s coat was having a split at the back of the hood for a ponytail. (You kind of can't see it in the picture but it's there...)

I had more difficulty designing the front of my outfit. I eventually decided on taking inspiration from Odin’s outfit. The overlapping, angled layers matched the back of my outfit and are a common feature of Asgardian clothing.

I kept having to pause my progress on this outfit while I waited to come up with a design that felt right. It was annoying to be unable to do anything but when the inspiration struck I was always glad I had waited for it.

I had thought the front design went through a lot of iterations but then I got to the sleeves. I knew I wanted my sleeves to be detachable, like Thor’s, but that was it. I tried designs that were plain, fancy, layered and curvilinear (like Sif’s), patchwork (like Loki’s) and crossover (like the rest of my outfit).

I settled on patchwork but decided to err on the side of simplicity.

I chose the one in the bottom right which takes some of the elements from Loki’s Avengers outfit.

I did the stripe design in powerpoint.

The last things I designed were the vambraces.

I started by drawing them on paper but then I realised that, by using layers in Gimp, I could try out designs by placing them on a photo of the in-progress outfit.

It’s just like playing paper dolls.

I ended up choosing a design that was based on the braces worn by young Thor at the start of his first movie. I don’t have a better picture of them because he never has his hands still.

Choosing a colour scheme was also a difficult part of this design.

When I envisioned it in my head my outfit was mauve and grey but something I’ve learnt about myself is that I am much more comfortable in dark-coloured clothes. So if I wanted to ever actually wear this it had to be dark (which has the unintended side effect of making me look evil).

I went to spotlight with no particular colours in mind and found an appropriate type of fabric I wanted (suiting) – and then I had to choose from the colours available. So I took a photo and went home to test combinations in Gimp.

Sequels coming soon: Construction, Photos



Movie images belong to Marvel Studios.

A very productive week

Over the last week I made three tops and a skirt.

Saturday before last I went to Spotlight and while I was generally disappointed by their lack of nice fabric, especially in my price range, I did find a few things that I liked. Apparently grey is very 'in' for me this season.

First to get cut was a grey, hot pink and lime floral jersey – a sale table find. I used this to make McCalls 6608 view D, which turned out to be a really lovely skirt. I mostly left the pattern alone except for the waistband. Rather than using the folded over rectangle I used the shaped waistband from the woven skirt (views A, B and C) to have a more fitted shape. Instead of threading the elastic through after everything was sewn together I slid the elastic into the detached waistband and used the zipper foot to make a very closely fitted channel. I then ditch-stitched through the elastic on the side seams. I don't think the line through the waistband looks too bad and it is certainly the most comfortable elasticised waistband I've met.

After making the skirt I had a metre of fabric left over (plus a few patches from in between skirt pieces) so I decided to do a trial run of Vogue 8323 view A. Finally! I started laying the patterns on Sunday morning and by bedtime had everything done (skirt and shirt) bar the hemming. The jersey is a bit too jelly* for this top and the neckline flopped open way too low but once stitched in place I think it turned out well enough. And I'm not going to complain about a wearable mockup made from leftovers.

I hemmed the skirt during the week and on Saturday was ready to finish the top and begin another. View B this time. The pattern recommended 1.2 metres and there was 1.15 on the roll. So close to perfect... The only problem was that the pattern was for 3/4 sleeves whereas I wanted full length ones. 'Twas an easy fix. There was just, only just, enough leftover fabric for two cuffs (cut with the stretch in the wrong direction).

The fabric has a lovely subtle sparkle to it.

The collar does take a bit of convincing to sit in a non-weird way but I really like the top.

I finished the light grey shirt by mid afternoon. I think that's the first time I've taken a garment from fabric to finished in one sitting. I've expected it to happen before but something always comes up (that and I’m really bad at estimating how long sewing takes). Turns out there’s something to be said for using one fabric, a pattern as is, and no detailed embroidery or painting or hand-hemming. Working with knits also cuts out a bunch of time consuming steps that wovens require.

On Sunday evening I decided to lay out the pattern for another top. Once that was done I realised that it was only 7.30, not 10pm as I'd thought, so I cut it out then. And then I sewed it up too, because, you know, it's nice to get things out of the way. The top turned out really nicely. This fabric was actually sturdy enough to support the neckline.

Unlike the first two shirts I made from this pattern I used the sewing machine instead of the overlocker. I was much more comfortable with this and felt a lot more in control – I could always tell how wide I was making the seam allowance. (Although in a postscript to my overlocker thoughts my mum has decided that they're wonderful and the overlocker ought to be set up all the time. We just need to find the space.)

* Means slinky, wobbly, difficult fabric. Technical term. At least, it is in my house.

A Lockwork Purple

Over the last few weeks I have been getting to know the overlocker I won at the Canberra Show. I did the overlocker basics class at Needlewitch followed swiftly by the performance costume class (which used an overlocker). Then I set up the overlocker at home to make something by myself.

Overlocked leotard from the performance costume class - mine is actually swimming togs.

I looked through my patterns for a project that would be appropriate for an overlocker. I've wanted to make Vogue 8323 for ages but never had enough fabric in the stash for view A, nor could I find something I liked in the shops. But I had just enough shiny purple left over from my Misery costume to make view C which would test whether the fit was right.

At first I planned to line the shirt to make it a bit warmer and because I anticipated the fabric would be uncomfortable against my skin. I made the lining first and it fitted reasonably loosely but my outer fabric was less stretchy and the fit more snug. I decided to make the lining into a second top. It's a bit thin but will be good for layering.

I don't like how the sleeve inset on the purple turned out, but I think that has got more to do with me not knowing how to construct stretch garments than any fault of the overlocker. I'm making more and more of my everyday clothes as well as costumes and that means more stretch clothes so I'm going to need to improve my skills. The sleeves on the black shirt worked fine. The neckline and wrists of the purple shirt are finished with topstitched foldover elastic. I edged the black shirt with rolled hems. The first cuff worked well but the second cuff and hem both have some missed spots. I went over them again but I'm not sure how to solve the problem neatly.

My overlocker is a Toyota SLR4D which I'm told is a good one but at this point I have no way to judge that myself. When I finished the second shirt I packed the machine away and I'm not sure it will be brought out again soon. I have a couple of stretch projects planned but the thing that always put me off overlockers was the permanent cutting of fabric and that still bothers me. The purple shirt is a close fit and I wasn't able to redo the sleeves for a better fit because too much of the seam had already been trimmed away. Also, I can't leave the overlocker set up ready for use because the sewing room is already full with sewing machines.

Happily ever after

Previously on: I was unimpressed with the waist-level bulge on my McCalls 7091 dress. The prime suspect was the significant amount of gathering in the underskirt, but was that the real culprit...?

My first attempt at restructuring this dress was to re-cut the three-panel underskirt into twelve panels the same shape as the panels in the overskirt. I thought that removing the gathering would solve the problem. I did not have much spare pink fabric, so I had to cut the new pieces from the already cut pink skirt. There was insufficient depth so I had to make the tops of each new panel out of the black fabric (this will be important later).

So I sewed and pressed the dozens of new seams and carefully clipped the horizontal seam allowances to remove every scrap of unnecessary bulk... and it hardly made a difference. There was still a lot of fabric at the waist. So I unpicked the pink skirt, again, and took in all the seams on the black panels so it fitted me much more closely.  Then I gathered the pink onto the black extension pieces. Success!

The lining kept wanting to slip sideways so I hand sewed the outer layer to the lining at the front and side seams. This has the added benefit of smoothing out the edges of the silhouette.


And so what we have learnt...

•  I think the main problem here was a fitting issue. Between starting and finishing this dress I have learned a bit more about how to fit clothes and I think I need to make it standard practice to lengthen waistlines by about an inch as the first thing I do with a pattern. I do think extending the lining so the gathering is lower is a good idea, but the outer layer needs to be close-fitted lower as well.
•  I kind of regret cutting the pink as part of the first fix; it has too many seam lines now. It folds more nicely than it did, probably because it's gathered on to a smaller circumference, making more folds. The fabric still might be too stiff, but I like it so that doesn't count. :-)
• I learned that while zips need to be longer in dresses that have fitted skirts they can be shorter in dresses with full skirts. I'd had difficulty finding zips long enough to get my 40s dresses on easily, so for this dress I bought the longest invisible zip I could find. It is way too long. I hadn't thought about the difference skirt shape makes. The skirt on this dress is at least a full circle. The extra zip length bulges weirdly so I might go back and cut it off.  

I wore the dress to work last week and spent the whole day feeling fabulous, so it has all turned out well in the end.