Hiatus

I will be on a (hopefully) brief sewing hiatus. I am packing up my stuff and moving to a new home city to start my very first teaching position. This is really so exciting.

I just finished Simplicity 3678, but my camera has been packed away already. The short review is that I am very pleased, but my rayon jersey has more than the recommended stretch, so I have some minor fitting quibbles. On the whole, very cool.

Back soon!

down to the wire

The family had arrived in town and Mom had come over to help me finish up. The hooding ceremony was at 1:30pm. It quickly became obvious that there was no way the gown would be finished completely for the ceremony, but we were willing to tack it together enough to make it through.

I basted in the yoke lining and left the collar sections unclipped because I could see that they were going to need some more attention. We threw the robe on and marked to sleeve length and hem line. Mom turned up the sleeves while I sewed in the front zipper. I managed to get the zipper sandwiched between the lining and the front so that it was fully enclosed.

We were working as fast as we could:


I basted the lining to the front and front collar down to the section of the front opening that was not involved in the zipper (very sloppily).

Then, we broke out the packing tape. I had to get changed and my mom threw on her dress and started taping up the hem:


My mom tacked down the yoke lining and finished taping pu the hem while we were in the car on the way to the hooding ceremony. It was pretty excellent. The cosmetic underpinnings held for the few hours of the ceremony and soon we were at the reception, showing off our new hoods:

first look

Now that garment was almost all in one piece, I could put it on the dress form and see how things were looking:




The collar was just pinned into place, but I could already spot a few minor trouble spots.

1) major collar roll:

I was kicking myself for not drafting a proper undercollar pattern that could help roll the collar under instead of just cutting two collar patterns. I briefly considered redrafting another pattern, but I decided that since I needed to wear the robe in less than 36 hours, I should probably just suck it up and hope that once it was actually attached to the gown and covered by a hood, it would not be so noticeable. To those who might be attempting this, I strongly recommend drafting a separate undercollar pattern.

2) the front undercollar was on the bias and had stretched out quite a bit. I had to ease this back in because I could not recut the collar without scrapping the whole thing and I had already nixed that plan. So I just pinned in the ease and hoped that this would work out:


In my pinning madness, I got a little obsessed with having all my pins "organized"


time was running out before the gown needed to be worn to the hooding ceremony...

countdown

The dissertation is due to the committee in 6 days. Hmmm... you know what that means? Time to think about something else.

I received my one-time use gown yesterday. It's great to have a back up, but it's also good to help me match colors. Yes I know the cheap gown i not the same color as the nicer one, but if I can match the cheap one, I won't stand out too much.

I also received swatches of 4-ply silk and charmeuse from an eBay site and darned if they weren't exactly the same as the fabric from G Street, but at less than 1/2 the price (and they sent me a 10% off coupon).

I don't have time to take pictures, but the best color matches so far have the 3-ply silk crepe (for color), the 4-ply silk crepe (slightly darker color, better drape, better highlights), and the light weight linen (slightly off color, wrong drape but I think I could fix the drape by washing and drying it in the machine). The wool crepe it too dark, but I know that the cheap gowns are lighter than the nice ones, so I could still go that route if I wanted to.

Back to my spreadsheets.

The impossible quest

I am currently writing my dissertation. I will defend it in less than a month. Which means I will be attending my last graduation as a student. I have accepted a position as an Assistant Professor, which means that I will be attending many, many more graduations. I wanted to have the really nice regalia, since I will be wearing it more than once (and I like fancy costumes).

The made-to-order regalia cost in the neighborhood of $900 and are made out of a poly-crepe. I don't need to sit in the sun in a $900 trash bag, so...

I have decided to sew my own academic regalia. I thought this would a pretty straightforward problem. You know, find pattern, pick out fabric, adjust pattern, sew, look fabulous.

Not so.

There is only one commercial pattern available to make academic/clergy robes. It is from Butterick, which I have found to be a pretty good workhorse pattern company. But I have taken a closer look at the construction of regalia and there are significantly more fiddly bits than appear at first glance. The Butterick pattern does not try to include these, but I think it can be altered to include them.

My initial research indicates that very few others have tried to do this project, so I am starting my first blog as an attempt to a) distract myself from looming deadlines and b) leave a trail for others to follow. I have found the costume diaries of others to be of great help, so I hope that this diary might be helpful to others. Please, if you're reading, post comments and questions.