Thursday, November 3, 2016

Suffragette Ensemble - Mock-up and Inspiration


I'm finally getting around to working on my Suffragette outfit!  I would have started on it long ago, but I had a big commission to finish up last month, and Brian the Engineer and I were travelling out-of-state the first three weekends in October.  It was a busy month.  Progress has been slow this week, too, because I've been feeling under the weather.  So it might be a bit of a rushed job, but I'm determined to have it done for Election Day.

My inspiration, from Pinterest:


My patterns:


My fabrics consist of four yards of houndstooth wool, a yard of dark brown wool twill, and some scraps of dark brown velvet:


I wanted to modify the jacket pattern to more closely match the lines of the inspiration image, as well as fit more closely to my waist.  I also really love the little pleated insert in the front of the skirt, so I'll be adding that, as well.  I started by making mock-ups of both patterns, cut from two different old sheets:  

I cut the jacket front with a more dramatic diagonal at the hem edge. 
I think I still want to shorten the jacket by two or three inches.
The original pattern had pockets at the side front seams, but I moved them to the side seams. (They are just slits, for the mock-up)
It's hard to see the pleated insert in the above photos, so I took one of the skirt flat on the floor:


The Truly Victorian pattern calls for lapped seams, which you can see above creates a free fold on either side of the front panel.  I didn't like how this looked with the pleated insert, so on the final skirt I am going to make those lapped seams face in towards the center front, instead.  I will also shorten the skirt a bit, as my inspiration piece is ankle-length.

I'm hoping that shortening the pieces will help me get the entire ensemble out of my four yards of fabric, but I do have the brown wool twill that I might use for the front facings if I run out of houndstooth.  This would make the lapels contrasting as well as the collar - which I'm planning to squeeze out of my scraps of velvet.  I will probably also make the cuffs from the brown wool, to match the inspiration image.

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