Be Excellent To Each Other

Waistcoat?

H&K MP5

Edwardian frock coat

Edwardian frock coat?

Ah, damnit.

Victorian frock coat

Williamian Frock Coat?

I made a cross stitch of Mario

And an Alice In Wonderland quote cross stitch

The mario one is awesome, how long did it take?

When I was in secondary school I did an awesome cross stitch of the World Trade Center.

At a guess between 60 and 100 hours over around 5-6 months.

Sewing corner!



Starting the toile in calico.



New sewing machine in action.



Main body done, final coat will be black wool, so it should look less like an old lady dress

That's awesome! Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Russ, I really like your Mario cross stitch, it's lovely.

Beautiful set up you have there, Trooper, and I’m looking forwards to your progress shots. I’m starting a coat, too, but a trench coat, for a two year old. I’m not sure if making things in miniature makes it easier or harder, due to being more fiddly.

You can get away with stuff being a little bit out on bigger things, too.

In fairness, my experience with this is from traction engines, but I imagine it's the same.

Smaller is definitely more difficult, one of my apprentice pieces was a tailored half scale half jacket, that was super fiddly to do.

I hadn’t even considered that, but that makes sense.

Ok, so a first sewing project should be a circus tent, gotcha

Parachute. Nothing could go wrong!

I think my favourite thing I’ve made in recent weeks was the trilobite tank top. Trying to design all of the motifs to give a sense of the variety of size and form, then fit that to a specific count to get the right size without long stretches of single colour between the motifs was difficult. It’s difficukt to explain, but there’s a lot of jiggery pokery this took to make it knittabke without large distortion from caught stitches. Anyway, I’m really glad I did this, despite the amount of work. It’s also my most liked and retweeted tweet ever, for some reason.

That is adorable! I'm not surprised it got the retweets, as it hits the eclectic, crafty, well made, but slightly nerdy demographic of your internet craft folk, I expect

Progress. Not too happy with the easing around the top of the arms, seems like there is way too much fabric in the pattern. That should be fixable in the final jacket though, a combination of the stretch of wool and easing all the way around the scye rather than just the top third will help.



Really happy with the back profile, should look pretty snazzy!

You do realise that you are that sane demographic, right?

That coat is looking nice. The back seams give a nice shape, what are they? They’re a bit like princess seams. What colour have you gone for in your wool? What colour is your lining?

Great crafting everybody!

Troops: we're now all going to be very underdressed at this year's Cottage.

I'd call them a princess line seam or a curved seam, there might be a fancy tailoring term I don't know about though, probably something in French...

Wool is black, as it's the first time I've made one, so it should hide a multitude of sins It's very heavy though, so i'm not sure it will work ok, but we shall see.
Haven't bought the lining yet, but i'm thinking purple or royal blue.

Speak for yourself, I've never been underdressed.

Having seen you in just a traffic cone, I beg to differ.

I was specifically referring to the cottage, but I'll give you the point.

Have you booked your flights yet?

Never knowingly overdressed.

This makes me want to puke

Hush, Sink boy.

That was art.

If art should produce a visceral reaction in the viewer, then yes, it's art.

That would make the act of beating up a ninety year old woman ina town centre an act of art. That can’t be the only defining metric of what is art.

Ok

I knew there was a flaw in that argument.

It’d make Myp an art form if true.

Well, that's what I was implying when I said it to Mali.

You are just doubly disproving yourself. Of all the things you are, a work of art you are not

Mate, if you have to explain them, they probably aren't funny.

You've been waiting ages for this moment

I'm vainly assuming you are interested in the process of making a coat, but even if you aren't i'm going to post anyway...

Moved on to the real deal, not that I can get very far as I haven't bought any black pocket bagging or lining yet, but I can do a little bit...

Pattern pieces laid out.


Traced and ready to cut.


Cutting. Rotary cutter and cutting mat is so much easier than scissors. Weirdly it turns out my table is exactly A0 in size with one leaf folded out, so I plan on getting another A1 cutting mat at putting them side by side, so I can cut with impunity and not worry about the table top.


Fusible interfacing on the facings and collar, to give it a bit more structure.


Dart in and pocket flap basted on for now, next I need pocket bagging so i'm paused... and it was now my needle snapped which is a bit of an arse as I has some spares in the post, but none here with me. I can't just go to a shop and get some though, as they are a non-standard size because it's old and it's a Singer.

Is this a commission, or just for funsies?

Just for fun, i'm years away from making something good enough to be sold.

My needles have arrived! Also, I got 4.5m of bronze lining for £14, so the jacket lining will be bronze

Also also, I made a thing.

Bronze sounds like a nice choice.

How was your Campbell’s print made?

Do you find cutting the curves easier with your rotary cutter? I love mine for multi-layer straight pieces but haven’t trusted myself with it for cutting curves

Styrofoam block printing sheet used to make the black outline and lettering, then hand painted in the colour.

Scissors are easier for curves, but as the stuff I cut has a seam allowance then it doesn't matter too much if the curves aren't perfect