Drafting the Pattern

25th March 2004

I keep copies of the patterns of everything I sew, sometimes in a neat folder but more often behind the bed or fallen down the back of the chest of drawers. Fortunately the pattern I want is in the folder so I can get going without any delay.

My pattern is a tried and tested one. I've used it for two bodices now, neither of which are pictured online, with only minimal adjustments. It has two pieces: a fairly narrow back piece and a much larger side/front piece. This produces a bodice with a centre back seam and two diagonal seams close to it, like those seen in some Breugel paintings such as this snippet from The Harvesters. Here's the trick - if you look at the two pieces side by side, you can see I've taken a narrow triangle out of the big piece at the side-back seam. This curves the back of the bodice in slightly and makes it conform better to my shoulders.

If you look closely at this you may be able to see a few scribbles. I routinely mark all my patterns with date, garment and any adjustments made en-route. I also note whether or not the pattern includes seam allowance. Two years down the line, when I want to use the pattern again, I won't have a hope of remembering what was what. I've learnt that the hard way.

I want to adjust this pattern slightly. It's a little too small, a little high in the neck and I had to raise the waistline slightly to stop it wrinkling. Others who've used hemp cord have suggested that it's made their bodice shrink, so I want to allow a little slack for that. So, first of all, I copy around the pattern onto a new piece of card, mark the adjustments, label it and cut it out. No great shakes.

Next stage is to cut out four front pieces and four back pieces out of heavy linen. I make the bodice structure out of a sandwich of two pieces of linen with the boning in between them and, unlike my pattern, I have a left and a right.

Next stage is to start on cording the thing. Normally I use cable ties as bones, and that's easy. I just sew a pair of lines for each bone, trim the bones, slip them into the channels and that stage would be done. But, as is, I'm using cord, and that requires a whole bunch more channels...

Cording the Bodice

In a sense, this next bit should be regarded as something of a tangent. I've been wanting to try this technique for a while and, given I have to make a new kirtle so I can photograph the stages for the guide, I decided to indulge myself.

In writing this I'm relying very heavily on the work of Jen Thompson. I haven't needed to write a detailed account of the cording process because it's amply illustrated on that site so, if you're interested in trying this technique yourself then I'd strongly suggest checking it out.

So far I've corded one bodice piece and, right now, I'm not convinced. There are a lot more channels to sew which, were I doing this by hand, would feel like it were taking forever. As it is I just had to concentrate really hard on getting them straight and even. I hardly ever use the machine, so I struggled with that. Then I had to thread the cord through them and that was an exercise in frustration. I used a cable tie with a loop sewn to the end to push through the channel, pick up the cord and pull it back through. I used two cords per channel and after the first couple I got the knack of stopping them from twisting. But, all in all, it was a far more time consuming and fiddly process than just flinging a few bits of plastic in.

How is it looking? It's a bit early to say. The whole thing looks incredibly floppy, but I'm used to the much more rigid line plastic ties or metal give. I haven't boned the whole bodice but, instead, have just run four or five cords where each bone would be so it's also possible that I simply don't have enough cords in there. The proof will be when it's assembled and I see what line it gives. As a worst case scenario I can always pop a few stitches and replace the center front cord with a cable tie.

Pictures should follow tonight...

28th March 2004

One half-corded panel. I was a little worried about how flimsy it was and so have added some more cords, and it's looking a lot better. I've also sewn the channels on the other front piece but I've yet to put the cord in. That's a job for tomorrow. I'll be very interested to see how it actually looks on.

30th March 2004

I've made quite a lot of progress over the past couple of days. Both front pieces are fully corded and I've started to cut the wool. Obviously, given how little fabric I have, it was important that I cut things out as efficiently as possible, so I was double checking all the way through to make sure I didn't make any stupid mistakes. Fortunately my fabric was twice as long as my normal skirt length, so the first stage was to cut it in half. Then I bunched all the bodice pieces up on one side of the fabric, leaving me a fair amount to put in the skirt.

Basically I plunked the bodice pieces down onto the wool, pinned them down firmly and cut around them. The wool needs to be a good inch larger in all directions than the linen; it'll become obvious why later.

Front bodice piece pinned to wool. See how I've cut the wool an inch bigger than the linen?	The four bodice pieces sewn together
A close up of the seams	The right side, with the diagonal side back seams as in The Harvesters.

Next - and this is a machine sewing cheat - I pinned a front piece to a back piece, right sides together, and ran a line of sewing a quarter of an inch back from the raw edges. I repeated that with all the seams at the back, opened them out and pressed them. The next stage is to fold over that inch of excess wool and sew it into place, and that will happen tonight.

Later the same day...

I've got the next stage done rather earlier than planned. There's nothing like having an essay to avoid to make me concentrate on the sewing! This stage is where it starts to look like a bodice, and I start to get excited about wearing it. Remember that inch excess of wool? That's folded over the raw edges of the linen sandwich and tacked down. On the straight edges that's easy - simply fold and sew. The curves are a little more tricky and, in order to get the fabric to play nicely, it's necessary to make lots of cuts at rightangles to the fold. The steeper the fold, the more cuts are needed, and it's a question of playing with it until it cooperates.

I've made sure to trim back the wool enough that it doesn't cover the strip where the lacing holes will end up. Trying to make eyelets through one layer of wool and what will be three layers of linen is hard enough; there's no need to make that more of a pain by putting in an extra layer of wool.

After this, I plunk the whole thing linen side down on another piece of linen and pin it down firmly. Then I cut round that, again leaving an inch to spare. I tuck the edges in between the new lining linen and the blue interlining, again cutting the curves, and sew that down. I'll put up pictures of that when it's done.

A note on period construction...

As I've said above, sewing the back seams with the machine was cheating rather. It would be a more period construction were I to make up the four bodice pieces seperately. That is, fold the wool edges over and sew them down, then add the linen lining, before the pieces are joined together. Once that's done the panels can be whipstitched together.

1st April 2004

Most of this sewing was done over the past couple of days, but the pressures of essays have meant that I haven't put anything up. But I've just finished 5000 words on medieval social memory (yay me!) and am rewarding myself with some diary indulgence.

As I said above, the next stage was to pin a layer of thin linen over the ugly side (in this case, the blue side) of the bodice. I cut it an inch big all the way around, trimmed the edges, folded them under and hemmed them down. I did this on every side except the straight edge that will be the top of the bodice at the front; the reason for this will be apparent later.

I've started to sew the eyelets. I find eyelets a hateful task and, because I suspect the cording will bend if I don't, I'm putting them really close together. There's an inch between the centre of each eyelet, and that means I have to sew 22 in total. Utterly hateful things. I managed to get half a dozen done in a lecture yesturday, and I have five more to go. So an hour or so more sewing infront of junk tv and they'll be done. Horrible horrible eyelets.

Ahem. To be slightly more constructive...

I've spaced the eyelets for spiral lacing. There are excellent instructions for sewing eyelets here so, although my technique is very slightly different, I'm not going to bother to repeat it. I use the satin stitch version. I'm sewing them with 80/30 londonderry linen thread from Threadneedle Street.

Finishing the Bodice

One final slog of eyelet sewing, and they're all done. This means that the bodice can now be laced up. So the next stage is to tuck the shoulder straps into the pocket between interlining and lining, pin them firmly and lace the bodice on. I can then adjust the length of the straps whilst I'm wearing the thing and, once they're just right, pin the blazes out of them. Then it's a question of sewing those straps to the blue interlining. This doesn't have to be pretty, but it does have to be strong, so I'm using some bastardised version of back-stitch.

Just like I've done elsewhere, I tuck the raw edges of the linen lining inside the bodice and sew that down then, turning the thing over, sew the wool of the bodice top to the wool of the strap. I repeat with the second strap and try the thing on.

And I hate it...

Looking at it closely, I think there are three things I don't like.

• The way it's rucking up at the sides and looking frumpy. The same flexibility that allows the cord to go around my breasts also allows it to support rather than suppress my flab. Whilst I'm quite happy to have nice, rounded breasts I'm not overly thrilled about nice, rounded rolls down the side. It's just possible that the weight of the skirt may correct that. If it doesn't I'll pop out some of the cord and replace it with cable ties.
• The way the straps go in at the shoulders, making the neckline narrow at the top.
• That the bodice front is not horizontal.

I'm not quite sure how either of the last two happened, since this pattern has been fine before, but fortunately they're easily fixed. I need to unpick the seam holding the lining and the wool down, trim the blue interlining and resew them correctly. Isn't that looking better?

15th April 2004

With the bodice now finished, I'm free to move onto the skirt.