Putting it all together.

It's not too often that I'm stupidly pleased with myself, but I'm stupidly pleased with these sort of 'hidden' pockets in the hexagonal patchwork. I made the pocket pieces out of the left-over hexagons, then backed it with red silk and whip-stitched it in. The joint is just about invisible.


Sewing it in.

The finished pocket! There's one on each side. The only issue is that they're rather hard to access with the coat shut, but oh well. I'm going to keep this idea in the back of my head for later.

I also made a little union-suit to go under The Liar's outfit--It might seem a little bit over-kill to go so far as to make the underwear, but I fee like it's important to not neglect any part of the clothing. Also, the performance that I'm working on involves undressing, so I sort of need it for that.



I joined a pair of army long-johns to a rather strange (also military) woven wool undershirt, and made a button-placket in the shirt to bring up from the pants.

And, of course, I actually got a model for The Liar's outfit so far! It's been totally great (and somewhat surprising) to see all of the pieces together. I was a little scared to see it all on--I didn't exactly y'know, plan it all out, and I wasn't sure how the whole thing was going to work together. I essentially had no idea was the sillouhete was going to look like until I got it all on Jess. It's somewhere between traditional Japanese firefighters, a Moebius character and medieval armor. It was also an incredible relief not to be wearing it myself. I'm not a performer, and having the burden of performance on top of making was a little too much I think. It also helps to be able to see it performed. Many thanks to Jessica!


Starting from the base-layer. This actually fit perfectly, no fixing needed! She reported that it was pretty comfy, even it the upper wool was a little scratchy.


The pants also fit well. I was originally planning on altering the waistband of the pant, and now I'm not sure if I will. It feels a bit like cheating to leave it constructed like that, but it looks good and hey, if it was in good shape when the character recieved it, maybe it didn't need much reconstruction.



After getting the hooded shirt and quilted jacket on.

Opening the jacket a wee bit to see the red.


All together now! The only thing I'm missing is the stockings, and connecting the gloves to the rest.

The quilted jacket is really rigid, you can see it holding it's shape here.


My favorite picture, you can really see all the intersections and different 'colors' of black and textures.

7 comments:

  1. Wow.
    That looks exactly like the sketch.
    That's really.......I never know how to describe your work..... crazy? vintage? Redunc?

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  2. Ye gods, that outfit is cool.

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  3. That pocket is perfect.

    I love the elegance of a hiden pocket in a hiden lining.

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  4. You know what would be really cool? If you put something inside the pocket and then stitched the pocket closed with those loose stitches used to close the pockets of suits when they are still in the stores. Then your character could open up the coat and removed the smuggled item hidden in the secret pocket.

    He's called the Liar, he's gotta have interesting things to hide... :)

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  5. I just skimmed through your old entries - you have some wonderful work here! Really inspiring. :)
    I love the colours in this piece, particularly.
    ~Sarah from OZ

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  6. I absolutely adore everything you make... quick question though, how does hexagonal patchwork, work?

    I don't even know how to ask what I'm trying to...

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  7. Kat: I tried to reply on your blog, but none of them looked like they had been updated, so I'll reply here.

    If you search 'grandmother's flower garden' you'll get a lot of sites on how to do hexagonal quilting. I just didn't make flower motifs with mine. I also didn't find it necessary to use English paper piecing. Mine were fine just as long as my seam allowance was constant. It's all hand-sewn, there are a lot of turned edges (I think that's how you'd describe it?) and it wouldn't work too well on a machine.

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