Applique

As bought up in the last post I have an incredible amount of applique, reverse applique and opposite gathered inserts to complete on this costume and it was sure to be the most time-consuming, mind-numbing and tricky part of the decoration and overall construction.

I'm not quite sure how, but the applique has been completed! I am so excited and chuffed with how it looks. The fabric was dyed by myself, every single star moon and triangle was cut out by my own fair hand and each one painstakingly placed and stitched on by me. The entire pattern and colour was created by me. This thought is so exciting to me. Being unsure on my ability to create costumes with technical textile techniques this project made me really nervous. However after seeing the hours and hours and hours of work pay off, and see your garment starting to take shape and come together, it's just the best feeling. I'm unbelievably proud of what I've achieved, even if I do say so myself!

All the pieces that make up my doublet and breeches.

Slightly over-decorated doublet front and sleeves!

Breeches back.

It has taken quite a massive amount of hours to complete all this decorative work. Especially as some of the stars and moons are only a matter of centimetres big.

Unfortunately, I was not warned about 'shrinkage' prior to cutting out on my top fabric, or beginning my applique, so there has been some distorting in the shape of the pattern from the original shape. Some of the seams and edges have either shrunk or been stretched out - making the overall shape slightly different to the original pattern. However it is not too drastic and I still have more than enough in the seam allowance to play around with and make up for any shrinkage. Although in future I may cut my top fabric the recommended 5cm bigger all the way around the pattern, so ensure this shrinkage and warping will not happen again and effect my pattern.

Project So Far

Last week we had our first stage fittings, a scary moment! Especially because the actor I had drafted and made my toile for dropped out of uni the day before my fitting, giving me practically zero time to make any adjustments to my costume in time to fit my new actor. This was a really stressful thing to happen, particularly when you've carefully drafted a pattern to fit a certain actor, I was really keen to see how it would sit on him. C'est la vie. In industry and in the real world, this sort of last minute actor change is something that is bound to happen regularly, so it is really good to learn to roll with the punches and being able to adapt quickly to stressful changing situations. I think I dealt with this pretty well all in all, as I went into the fitting with a clear head, prepared to tackle all the necessary changes.

Luckily, the actual fitting went surprisingly well, and my compliant actor accepted that the costume had not originally been made for him, and was great throughout the entire alteration process. There were quite a few minor alterations to make, to hemlines, cufflines and necklines, but nothing too drastic. On the whole, the costume was just slightly too large for my new actor, which meant I just had some small bits of taking in to do. I was incredibly happy with how the costume looked and the fact that it fit quite well. I felt like I had done a really good job, and it just made me more excited to get on and cut out in the top fabric, so I could see what it would really look like.

Here's a few snapshots of the decorative work I have been creating so far:

Over 200 moons and stars, from large to small, backed onto bondaweb, ready to be appliqued onto the costume.

Triangles appliqued on around the edges of the breeches. These will go around the edged of the entire costume.

Moons and stars bondawebbed in place. Ready to all be stitched around to create detail. This is just the back of the breeches...