Progress!! Finally!

I have finally made progress on a couple of the projects!  I have finally finished the Men's Renaissance shirt.

 It doesn't look pretty on the hanger, but always looks nice underneath a doublet/jerkin.

I did also take some time to tackle the cassock that i have had in the works.  I was having issues mentally getting the pieces together so was reluctant to work on it and have to redo something.  Finally I gave myself an hour to work while my daughter and I watched Charlie Brown and just went with the flow of the garment.  Surprisingly it came out the right way and i didn't have to redo any of it.  It fits perfectly and now just needs a bottom hem and the millions of buttons that go on a cassock.

 This is the front view (my youngest is holding it for me).  It's really bad quality on the picture taking but I can't ask for too much more from a camera phone.  The lining color is not quite the same as the wool but it is close enough.  In person you can see the difference but I'm not too worried about it.

This is the back view.

After measuring out the button placement, at 1 1/2 inches apart, the cassock would require 118 buttons.  i have had other people tell me that at 2 inches apart I can manage about 60 buttons.  I'm waiting for the buttons to come to me and then I can place them on the cassock and get a better idea of how many button holes I want to suffer through.  Thankfully my machine does buttonholes easily for me, it just will require a lot of time.

Sewing Sewing Sewing

I have almost completed the shirt for Mike, it just needs button holes on the sleeves, buttons and a bottom hem.  I forgot to take pictures of the finished neckline so will have to do that when i work on it next.

Next on the list is to finish the wool cassock before Bordermarch Autumn Melees, which can be hot, cold, wet or all of the above :)  The man needs a warm cloak so really need to finish it.  I've got the body mostly together, just need to add the collar, epilets, and sleeves then the millions of buttons it requires.  I need to still find those buttons too which is the hard part.

After the cassock is done, i need to work on my German dress for Stargate Yule which is coming up quickly as well.  Hopefully that one won't take too long since I'm making a simple camp frau type of dress.

Men's Shirt

Made some more progress on the shirt last night.  I worked on finishing sewing the pleats onto the cuffs and sewing the under cuff.  I then put on Confessions of a Shopaholic and hand sewed the under cuff to finish off the sleeves.

All the sleeves need now are the buttons and button holes.  This weekend i plan on grabbing the man for a fitting and finish the neckline.  Next on the list is the Wool Cassock.  I have got to get projects off my list!

Men's Shirt

So last Tuesday I had time to work a little bit more on the shirt for the man.  The pattern is easy, just requires a lot of pieces for the  cuffs and neck.  Since I had to do a lot of hand pleating, I put on Les Miserables and sat down to work.  The last time I worked on the shirt, I attached the sleeves to the body and the neck gores.  This time I was ready to attached one side of the cuffs and the ruffles at the end of the cuff.

 This step requires the base of the sleeve to be pleated to all fit on the cuff.  This is blackwork that I had previously completed (about a year ago, shame on me).  One of the sleeves took me a couple times since i had the black work design going a different direction than the other.  I thought about leaving it, but changed my mind and went a head and fixed it :)

 The next step is to take a yard of fabric and pleat it into a 10" piece.  There are a ton of tiny pleats to fit and I decided not to redo it so ended up with a piece that needs to be cut off and hemmed so it all fits.  I think I ended up leaving about a 3" piece off the end of the pleats.

Since I was so engrossed in the movie, this is as far as I got on both sleeves (Shame on me!).  Next I need to sew down the ruffles and then I can attach the back cuff and hand sew that down.  I will be able to finish that portion of the sleeve tomorrow.  I need to have the man try on the shirt so that I can do the same process to the neck ruffle and collar.