Just the Tip

It's been a while...

sorry about that. Among other things, I was busy graduating, so not a lot of time to do blogging or sewing (though since I've graduated, I've made A LOT of random stuff) I suppose this means I have to change all my profile blurbs from student to recent grad or something. Cue panicking and fuck shit fuck...

But enough about that.

As a few of you know, here on the Stitchin' Bitch, we aren't too fancy and aren't very great with all this "draping" shit so I use store bought patterns and then fit them and alter them either on my own or with gratuitous amounts of help from fairy-god-siblings. It doesn't take  *too* much to figure out how to adapt patterns to fit to something that isn't quite what the original designer had in mind. It's pretty much as easy as taking the sleeve from a jacket pattern and sticking it onto a bodice pattern to make a less "fairytale" looking arm covering. Anyway, the problem is that a lot of those shitty store-bought patterns you get from Joanne's (Joanne? Joanns? Joann? Someone let me know how you're actually supposed to pronounce it because while the website says "Joann" I've seen stores with an apostrophe) come on this shitty flimsy-ass paper that is harder to fold back up and stick into the envelope than it is to make the $20 swallowing swords or juggling balls or just straight-up turning tricks(heh, innuendo) to buy a whole damn new pattern if you ever decide you want to pull that pattern out again or salvage it for parts. On top of that, I find that when I'm trying to even use the pattern, if I don't complete my task in under 2-3 hours, the thing gets crinkled and fucked up and tears apart and AUUUGUHHHHHHHH.

Sorry, what was I saying?

Oh yeah.

So using an additional like, $0.50 of materials, I came up with a way to make your patterns less flimsy so that you can maybe, fold them up individually and pull them out again later and not feel like you're handling them with the care you'd handle Clara Bow's vintage underthings (Hint: you'd handle them delicately because they're like 100 years old and probably quite lacy.)

The Stitchin' Bitch Solution to Firming Up Those Shitty-Ass Pattern Pieces You Get From the Store

For this project you will need: 

• Your shitty-ass pattern
• Scissors. The ones you use for paper, NOT YOUR FABRIC SCISSORS, IDIOT, YOU'LL FUCK THEM UP AND REGRET IT LATER.
• Butcher paper or other heavy large paper (they sell this by the yard at most craft stores. I chose black because I own a surplus of gel pens that write nicely on black. Also it's slimming.
• Spray mount. Look for the "workable" kind or "repositionable" because if you fuck up with placement, you might be able to peel it up and re-stick it.

Tea is optional but damn tasty

Step 1:

Cut out your original pattern pieces as you usually would. It's okay to swear here, this flimsy stuff sucks. I also forgot to get a picture of this step.

Step 2:

Lay out your pattern pieces and roughly estimate the amount of paper you'll need to back your patterns. 

Step 3:

Spray a pattern-piece-size space of spray-mount onto your paper. This stuff will 1. get everywhere or 2. works best with just the slightest amount so I suggest choosing the "get everywhere" option and keeping wet-wipes around. If you spray too close, the glue will pool up and seep through the pattern and be sticky and make a mess and also, your pattern piece won't lie evenly. The right amount will feel like a very sticky post-it.

Step 4:

Carefully apply the pattern (using two hands, I only used one because I was taking the picture here.) it's easiest to start from one side or start from the very center and smooth it out from there to ensure the least amount of wrinkles.

Step 5:

Once your pattern pieces are all smoothed out onto the butcher paper, cut the pieces out again. Please use scissors you don't like, just incase some sticky gets on them and never comes off.

Step 6:

Bask in your new pile of durable pattern pieces. You're awesome. Did you know that? Just. Fucking. Awesome.

Seriously, compare that shitty crumpled mess with your nice new, durable pieces and pat yourself on the back. Or better yet, make yourself a drink. Now you can re-use this shit over and over again, no worries!

Next time: more lies about what I'm going to post on here next time. I'm actually afraid to post what I'm going to put here anymore because it basically PROMISES that the mentioned project will never get done. Like, I still have a 2 year old faire gown I haven't posted yet. YES IT'S THAT BAD.

Can't Touch This

Lets Talk Panties

When you start making historical costumes, sort of the first thing you wind up doing is having to learn about historical underpants.

in a nutshell

The important thing about underthings is that if you aren't wearing the proper ones, nothing lies properly on top. Just like how sometimes a gal's chest just looks different when she's not wearing a bra under her shirt, she's gonna look weird wearing a bodice without a corset underneath.

I'm looking at you Sarah Jessica Parker. HOW DID YOU GET AWAY WITH IT, DAMNIT?!

This is my subtle plug to DO YOUR RESEARCH. (My peers at school understand how I feel about this) but also, MAKE YOUR UNDERPANTS.

Because we all need to have them under our dresses, every re-enactor costumer and their mother has their way of making bloomers... and usually they're all the same. Look there are only so many ways to make a pair of pajama bottoms. That said, I recently needed to make my own version of... harem pants? something like them genie pants... politically-incorrectly-named-arabian-nights-pants and this seemed like the best way to go.

How to make bloomers/pajama pants/haremish pants/what have you, they're really fucking comfortable

First, you will need:

• Fabric, I'm about 40 inches from my waist to the floor and I knew I wanted these roomy so I went with about 2 yards of fabric at something like 72" wide. These were for an upcoming costume and possibly clowning or something later so I made mine out of copper striped silk taffeta. I don't recommend silk taffeta for this project.
• Your sewing machine
• the appropriate threads
• Elastic. (mine is 3/4" knit non-roll) I generally prefer non-roll because why not?

1. Get ready for your endeavor by putting on your favorite comfy pair of pants, you'll be bending around and stuff so you gotta get comfy. Doughnut pattern optional. You can make yourself a drink now if you'd like.

   

   As usual, take a drink and ignore the mess.

2. Lay out your fabric (I forgot to take a picture of this)
3. Realize you don't have a pattern. That's fine, you have your pattern very close to you...
4. Take off your pants and fold them in half, these are going to be your pattern. What you really need is the curve in the crotch. The curved edge should be pointed out and the straight end will be on the fold.
   
5. Mark the curve of the crotch area with a pencil. Mark everything else. The length can be anywhere from your knee to your ankle depending on what you're actually doing. Since these were going to be "harem pants" I ended them at the ankle.
6. Cut out your pattern twice. You'll wind up with two of this shape:

   

   Stolen from another DIY for this. You should basically have this shape.

7. Fire-up your sewing machine and realize you don't have the right thread for this project. Pick out the closest approximation you can.

   

   Close enough.

8. Start by hemming the bottom of your pants pieces. You should be making a channel for your elastic band to go around to close the ankle. If you're making pajama bottoms and don't want them closed down there, skip the wide channel and just do a regular rolled hem. Or get yourself a surger. Those things are fucking awesome.
   
9. Realize you can't find your fucking snips even though you were using them like, 20 god-damn minutes earlier and you expressly told yourself not to misplace them because you knew you were going to fucking need them in a few minutes. Resort to using your teeth. Then move on to whatever other cutting implement you can find. I suggest nail clippers. Take a drink you Macguyver, you.

   

   I used sewing shears before resorting to an exact-o knife.

10. cut your first piece of elastic to the length of your lower calf, or knee or ankle, where you want the end of your pants to rest.
11. Locate the one safety pin you know you own because you used it to close your cardigan yesterday. Once it's found, resolve to go out and buy more. You'll forget this resolution the next time you get to the fabric store.
12. attaching the safety pin to one end of the elastic, thread the elastic through your channel making sure not to lose the other end in the channel. If you do, you'll have to pull the elastic out and start over again. Cussing will be involved. Take another drink. As you thread, the fabric should be gathering around the middle of the length of elastic.
13. Sew the ends of the elastic down at each end of the channel and just save yourself the trouble of trying to do this when you get to sewing the leg together or else you'll repeat step 12 more than you need to. Trust me on this one. I know. This is why there aren't pictures of this step.
14. Sew the inseam of your pant leg (yes that's what you were working on) up to the curved bit. DO NOT SEW THE CURVED BIT TOGETHER. I used to do this every time I made a pair of bloomers. I still do.
15. Marvel at the fact that you just made a pant leg and hey it looks like pants! Take pictures of yourself with one pant leg on and realize you can't use them in your blog because you're still technically pantsless and you're not supposed to show up pantsless on the internet. (Unless you choose to in which, more power to ya.)
16. Repeat steps 8-16 again. Drink twice.

    

    I stupidly forgot to get pictures of most of these steps so here's something
    I drew earlier...

17. Dance break. Congratulate yourself on how good of a seamstress you are. Cuss a few times when your bobbin fucks itself over again and threaten to pawn your sewing machine. Take it back when you re-thread it twice and it starts working again.
18. Flip each leg so that their right side is facing out. This is important because we're gonna sew the crotch.
19. Sew the curved bits so that they make one BIG smiley face perpendicular to your inseam. The reason you flipped these right-sides out is that for me, anyway, you're sort of coming at it from the waist hole.
20. Speaking of waist holes, make another channel for the elastic at the waist, leave a little hole for the insertion of elastic.
21. Cut and thread your elastic again. Have a mild panic attack when you can't find the safety pin. Everything is fine, it's under your sewing machine.
22. sew down the elastic and close the channel. Give everything a tug and you're finished!
23. Put them on and see if it all fits. Take a bunch of pictures of yourself:

Discarded doughnut pants...

                                         

And there you go, something like harem pants. these are a little poofy and I might not have used silk taffeta for them if iI could think of a better fabric. I might like.. put marbles in them or something to weigh them down but we'll see when they're added onto everything else. I'll post about that later.

Now you know how to make sexy bloomers (if you're into that) or you can wow your friends with homemade pj bottoms for the next gift giving holiday! Due to the nature of faire, I tend to go through two pairs of bloomers a year. (One pair will give out during northern and I'll replace it and the other pair will give out after southern. At least they're staggered.)

I hope this made sense, have fun with that, bitches.