Casaquin Anyone?!?!?

 I was given a dupioni silk copper suit jacket and skirt that is 10 zillion times to big for me.  Mrs. C Originally made it for a client of her's but the client didn't want it so it was passed on to me!

Whoo HOO!

I have hung onto this suit for a least a few years and finally found a used for it.  There really is alot of fabric in this suit and skirt so there was no point in throwing it away if I could salvage it.  Besides It's silk and silk is expensive.  Especially GOOD silk.  You can tell alot about the quality of the dupioni by the amount of slubs in the fabric.  Really textured and slubby (the ridges and bumps) the cheaper the fabric.  This is because the manufacturer is using the short, imperfect (not smooth) strands of the silk.

For the past two days I have been working on an 18th century Casaquin. First  I draped a pattern then drafted one.....


I started a a drape on Mrs. Squishypants and it was going smoothly, too smoothly....lol!  Once i had the drape I transfered it to pattern paper and drafted a two piece sleeve to go with it.  It looked okay when I made a muslin but the fit was off.  I dug into my shoulder and wasn't very comfy.  So I tried for hours to readjust the armhole shape to get it to work.  I gave up.  As a pattern drafter, I couldn't get the shape from the drape to translate onto the pattern since I didn't have the bust line or the Arm Hole Diameter to work with. 

So I started from scratch and used a pattern this time.  Although draping is faster and works wonders with bias material, it wasn't the right application for a fitted jacket.

Basic Block  Size 8 front and back No seam allowances

I used my basic block and traced it (without seam allowances) onto a piece of white cotton sheeting.  I then used that block to drape over Mrs. S (who was is stays) to get the right fit.

Front

Back

From then on it was fairly straight forward to get the design lines drawn and a pattern made.

closing and transfering darts front

Back closing and moving darts

extending the shoulder seam to the back

working draft no seam allowances

fitting the front pattern

fitting the back pattern.

I ended up transferring the dart out of the back into the center back which helped the princess line in the back lay flat. 

After all the little changes where made to the pattern, I added seam allowances and put the bottom on and added pleats....Stay tuned!