Evolution of the Casaquin

I have been pretty busy these past few days,  I have put together half of the main body pieces of the Casaquin.  Then as I was putting the one side of the comperes front together, I decided that I was gonna embroider a few flowers onto it. 

Silly girl.

I love how I CANT do anything simple...LOL

Here is a little preview of what I have done in since yesterday.

I used needlenthread.com. for reference and she has wonderfully easy how to videos for beginners.

Starting out.  I used the stem stitch on the vines and the french knot on the flower.

On the purple flower I used a loop and catch stitch, and on the rose buds I followed the instructions on her site and used a bullion stitch.

Almost done!

The back....not too messy!

Creating the Casaquin

Well I made the necessary adjustments to the pattern, created the lining pattern pieces and and currently cutting out the interlining from a cotton sheet.  I chose to interline the silk as it it very delicate and since there was the possibility of stress on the seams I wanted extra reinforcement for the silk.  I also wanted to give the silk more structure and body as the lining is going to be linen, which is normally has a soft drape

Hopefully next time I will have pictures of the jacket being constructed.

Cheers!

Casaquin Toile

This was my inspiration jacket.  Its a gorgeous Pet en L'Air.  It's pink, the fabric is fantastic, the bows, the ruffles.  It's super girly and I love it!  It also has a very interesting back.  Most Pets have a 4 large box pleats, 2 on top of each other, where as this one has tiny knife pleats.  Of course I'm a sucker for being different.  lol

I left off with pics of fitting the pattern with no SA (seam allowances) on Mrs. S and making the minor alterations and then making the pattern ready for a toile.

I cut everything out and VOILA....

My Casaquin.

You can see the thin piece on the front panel.  I had to do that in order to fit the pattern piece onto the existing jacket piece.  It will be covered by trim after so nobody will see.  And besides piecing is accurate right!?!?!  lol

The sleeve is hanging perfectly for an 18th century version.  If it was a modern jacket the sleeve is tilted to far forward.  The only adjustment I made to the sleeve was to take out a few cm from the sleeve head as it had too much ease and it wasn't fitting smoothly

I amaze myself sometimes!  LOL.  The fit is perfect and I have so much range of motion.  I'll definitely be able to run after kids and wrestle them down in it.  To be honest tho, I never have had much luck fitting myself and so have always been unhappy with the garments I've made for me.  I can fit and sew ball gowns and wedding dresses perfectly for other people, just not when it comes to myself.....UGH.  But I think I'm gonna be ecstatic when this one is done.  Yippee for me!

Stay tuned....=D

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!