Blue Wrist Weight

Boys felt they were too slow with heavy armour and at the fight at all, so they wanted me to make wrist bands with weights in them.
I made a pattern from the old wrist bands, then made one more pattern with folds included. I only could make half of it - it was already bigger than A4:-) The first pattern has been cut in two pieces to form a room for inserting the weights.

I serged the cut part of the first pattern. Then I ironed the folds at the second pattern and sewed it to the first piece at the marked lines. Ironed flat.

I bought a twill tape, folded it in the middle and ironed. This way I could be quite sure that when I sew at the upper half, the lower one will be caught too. I put it over the edge and sewed on.

The corners were quite difficult. I solved it like this: I sewed to the end of the side, then I sewed a bit back, I folded the tape as an arrow, pressed flat and went on sewing.

Then next step was velcro. I sewed on the tapes at the slots - I always sewed so that the tape was a cm longer than the unit (to leave a space for the weight). By the way, I wanted the wrist weights to be safe, so I sewed throught the velcro and the canvas several times.
At one end, I sewed in a metal loop, at the other I joined the soft part of the velcro with the scratchy one, pressed the seam flat and sewed to the rest with zig-zag stitch.

I bought soft duffel, cut out the shape of the wrist band (a little smaller), and sewed along the side without a twill tape. I didn't serge this piece.
This should protect a hand from being galled.

The fourth side of the wrist band was thicker and not well accessible because of the velcro bands - I decided to sew the twill tape on in hand.
You can see a stitch I used: I went up with the needle at the right side, caught a little bit at the edge of the tape, went down; at the wrong side I caught the tape from below and finished. The stitch has a zig-zag structure.
I started in the middle of the thread and tape (I made a slip knot on the thread). I sewed to the right, when finished untied the knot and sewed to the left.

At the corner I snipped the tape off leaving a small bit. I folded the end in and sewed. At this particular example I cut too much and the end frayed out. I ripped the tape off and did it again.

One should never be too lazy to repair their mistakes :-)

Pleated Skirt - Finished

You might remember I made the body of this skirt from a rectangle. Now I laid the skirt flat and cut the bottom to a more natural shape.

I wanted the bottom edge to be folded, but if I did it, it would destroy the pleats there. I decided to put a lace there, but as you can see, I didn't manage to keep the pleats anyway...

That's why I sewed the pleats again on the lace - I started in the middle of the lace, I sewed to one end of it, to the other and then back to the start. Cut the thread and repeat many times:)

I'll probably wear it only at home:-) The pleats aren't OK, don't keep the shape and maybe would suit more at some other place of the design.

However, this is my first actual skirt (if you don't count the fire costume and the tier skirt project that ended up at the bottom of my drawer... hopefully not forever:-) ), and I keep this thought in my mind to have a little apology for this brown thingy :-D

Pleated Skirt - Main Work

As I have the flag finished, I don't have a lot of urgent things to sew. I was drawing at school and a skirt design appeared. I wanted to make me a skirt for a long time..
The base is the same as at the fireshow skirt (but only from two pieces).
I made there a fake belt - I folded the upper edge of the shape and sewed through, then I folded it the right side to the right side, at the width of the belt-to-be.

I sewed a line and folded the belt back. I could afford this as the upper line of the skirt is straight.
I arranged the pieces at my hips with pins and got the right shape for the side seams. To make my work easier, I made them the same at both pieces:) I sewed one of them right and the other with one thread loose. I don't sew zippers very often.. I took one and basted it to the seam (through all layers). I put on a zipper foot and sewed from the bottom middle to the left and up along the basting. I cut the thread and made the other half symmetrically.
I'd thought I'd rip the seam out by pulling one of the threads, but I wasn't able to, I had to use a ripper..

I spent all day making pleats. They weren't many, but time consuming. I made the pleats and sewed a mm from the fold to make them stable. For the three pleats at the center back - sixteen lines sewed. Hooray:-P
When I had the front and back panel done, I could join them to the basic panel. I easily took it, put on the other piece and traced a line. I cut it out and sewed to the base.

The same at the front panel. Now I have a half-done skirt with open sides and unfinished bottom.

You can see I used a corduroy with hairs inside. Why? I don't like the look of the fabric:-D I made the skirt from what was left from the larp dress. Cheap fabric's ideal for experiments:)

I inserted this side pleat - I pinned it and sewed in. I had to do this because I didn't have enough fabric to make the skirt's body from only two parts.

All for today:-)

Gryffin Flag - Done

Here it is, my big application project.
In the end, when the flag was packed as a tube, the gryffin shrank anyway and my shar-pei unwanted effect got lost in it.

The think at the bottom is gold fringe.
I wanted a yellow one, but this must do.. :-)

Larp Easy Dress

This is my dress for the next larp battle I'll be a part of. I and two friends should represent witches. I didn't have anything to put on, so we went to a local cheap (used) fabrics shop and bought some. Then I cut out the shape - half the chest girth at the top, flared from the waist.

I added two tucks at the brest (really necessary to fit :-) ) and turned the edges in. I eventually added a tiny lacing to the waist for the front and back pieces to relatively stay together.
I made a "belt" from a rope I twisted thrice around me.

Quite wearable, if I admit that at first I just intended to cut the shape out and put on like that :-P

Shar-Pei

Not to post motivational pictures all the time, I have one demotivational for you. What is it like to make an application on a huge flag? :-)

Pulling the flag through the machine, there and back again and again.. The glue probably needs less than this to unstick from velvet. Quite unpleasant.

I sewed these parts first as they should be under the other layers in the end. When I have sewn a piece of a line, I re-iron the part of the gryffin that's to be sewn as next.

A word to the technique - when you make a sharp tip, it quite often happens that when you turn the application and sew back over the stitches, the needle gets stuck and the fabric's not flat eventually. I solved this by using a bit longer stitch for these places. Than the feeding works stronger.
The high curvature. Another hard matter. I cheat by sewing to the middle of the arch, turn (too much) and finish the curve. It's not a perfect arch, but it looks so:)

I'm really sorry about this. Hours of work and you get a hybrid of gryffin and shar-pei. The legs weren't glued enough and moved when I sewed them. When ironing them again, this occured.

The gryffin's done.

Gryffin Flag

I finally got to the gryffin flag. I peeled the paper off. I was very curious if my trick would work. I laid the animal flat and ironed (over the baking paper). It held nice:)
I might have bought a spray textile glue, but I couldn't imagine how I would aim where the application should be..

When I was tearing the paper to peel it easily from the application, I realized one think. If I hadn't, I could have got an exact tamplate (ironable, after my ways of storing patterns it would be handy:-)). Next time I will keep it.

Woolen Cloak - Sewing

I sewed the darts. You should tend to have a gentle passing between the seam and the part without seam.

I cut the unnecessary fabric and ironed flat. Wool reacts nice and when you iron the seam well, it's almost invisible:-) It copies nicely the shape of the body - wool is said not to have to be ironed, it's enough to hang it and it will draw up straight.

I hemmed the lower part of the cloak, using gathering as at the monk robes. As far as the neckline, I didn't gather anything. I just worked with my fingers so that the seam would be nice and flat.
You may notice I didn't serge anything. I didn't have enough time and wool shouldn't be machine-washed either, so I left it out.

I got this. Fastened with a safety pin for now. It's so warm and cosy I almost envy :-)

No, I really envy! :-P

Woolen Cloak - Cutting

This will be a present for my friend. We bought wool with some synthetics (we are poor students:-)), it should be warm enough..
I placed a pin to the center of one side and tied a cord to it. I made a knot at the right length and started marking half the circle with a charcoal. It's annoying that almost every string stretches. Maybe I might try the one masons use:)

As a concept of a future neckline I made the same in smaller version.

After some trying on I got about this pattern for the darts. They are necessary as the cloak's not made of a full circle and it would open in the front.

I had to cut out the edge a bit - I found out it's perfect when you take some pattern of a neckline, apply the back part to the part between the darts and the front part to the right and left - 90° turned.

Gryffin Flag - Preparations

My new project - huge heraldic flag. I often wish we had chosen a simpler sign:-D
I found a new product in a store - vliesofix. It's a glue that's usually on vlieselin, but just on a paper. I traced the picture to the paper (mirrored) according to the instructions. I roughly cut it out.

I cut out a piece of vlieselin even bigger than the previous one (at first wrongly mirrored:-D, but the second attempt was ok) and ironed it on. It's necessary, the glue itself can't prevent the fabric from fraying.

Then I ironed the vliesofix on. To protect both the iron and the fabric I did it over a baking paper. If you have your iron too hot, this ensures the glue won't stick to it.

Then I could cut the gryffin out. And it's not a matter of quarter an hour:) I like snipping the shape so that the tips of feathers and claws and hairs touch the first shape, at the second turn I cut out the details.
It's comfortable to have the exact line on the paper. I can't imagine I would have to draw it on the fabric with charcoal or with my superspecial marker that disappears within twenty minutes..

This way I should have the same result as if the vlieselin had glue on both sides. I wonder why something like that cannot be had at us:-)