Ah! After so many months of gathering/cutting/dying/cutting some more, I've finally begun to actually make up the braids for the braid coat. Seeing the work starting to pay off is very exciting. The 'double-ended' strips will be the shoulders of the coat, I figured that would be a bit more elegant (and less bulky) than trying to butt two up end-to-end at the shoulder seam. The three 'one-sided' strips in between are the back neck area. The four in front will be the front neck/closure flap area.
The top row is flipped over to the 'outside' The wool is turning out sort of dimensional (probably because it's difficult to steam/press down) which I don't mind. I'm holding off doing the sleeves until I see how much fabric I'm using up as I go, but it looks like I may have wayyy over-estimated. Still, it's better than not-enough.
In teaching news, I am teaching the evening "Experimental Costume" elective for highschoolers this summer. Unfortunately the class was cut down from 3 nights a week to 2. I understand why, the poor kids were exhausted last year, but I've had to change up my curriculum to suit only 8 3-hour class periods. It sounds like a lot, but remember I have to devote a whole class to learning how to dye and how to use the machines. So I think I'm going to do a riff on my pattern alteration/thrift remix projects, I'm calling it: Uniform/Custom-I'm making up a jumpsuit sort thing for each kid, and then I'll show them how to add and remove volume, do dyework, add zippers, ect. Anyway in order to do it, I had to make up a loose, basic jumpsuit pattern, which I bodged up from some shorts and a big button-up.
Gotta say I was expecting problems with the shortie bottoms but I think it actually worked out pretty well. It's big and boxy to give them room to play around with pleating or gathering. I'll probably do it as full pants so they can cut them off where-ever they like, same with the sleeves. Can't decide if I should leave the center-front seam open (so they can get inside) or just not connect the top and the bottom before I give it to them (that would leave it open to have a possible skirt bottom too.
Yep, clearly made with the leftover fabric from my last few projects. I need to decide what I'm actually going to make them with, I have muslin from the pattern-alteration project, but it's sort of wimpy. I'd love to do it with silk broadcloth because it would dye so well, but that would be pricey. Maybe a light-weight cotton twill? Gotta start shopping for that.
And here's a little drawing dump:
Mariah, doodling out the outfit altogether.
Page of shirt inspiration, well, you've already seen the top-left one come into being.
And yeah I like the Avengers. Watch this blog for a big weird dorky post (like my Star Wars one) about the costuming at some point. I was just tickled pink that Loki and Thor's sweet mystical/futuristic outfits had boots with sneakery soles on them, don't know why.
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