Wednesday, April 19, 2006

jolly green pants

Haldo! I finally remembered to take a picture of Aaron's spiffy green hose. I'm using "spiffy" in a pretty loose kind of way here. Loose, unlike the hose. They're better than the mockup. Not perfect, but better.

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Why is the dog in every picture I take?

I did one thing that I sort of regret. I decided that I was afraid that the seams might give since they're fairly fitted and movement might result in a rip. I thought that I'd reinforce them by using a stretch stitch on the sewing machine, then trimming the seam really close to it. Sort of like serging, but without the cool machine. Anyway, I'm pretty sure this will make them sturdy, but it also means that the seams don't lie flat. I decided that since this was the base layer and would be mostly covered by the peasanty short shorts, I wouldn't worry about it.

The yellowish overshorts are underway as well, but naturally, I forgot to take a picture in progress. I just did a normal seam on them and pressed the allowances open. It's much nicer looking, and since they're somewhat looser, I think it'll be ok. I'll take a picture once I get the hem done. Oh and Julie, I chopped off too much from the top too, resulting in what would be ye olde plumber's butt if it weren't for the lovely green underpants. So I think I'll be unfolding the hem at the top and using a narrow waistband to make it work. The non-bias waistband is pretty helpful for keeping them up anyway, although I'm not sure it's period. I figure it'll be a good place to put the eyelets. To tie the pants to the jerkin. Aaron's still somewhat bemused about tying his pants to his jacket. Heh.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

why knits were invented

So.....we have a mockup of the Aaron's hose. These will be the bottom layer, underneath the peasanty short-shorts. And huzzah for peasanty short-shorts, I say! Nice argyles, no? And everybody loves tight pants in shiny cotton-poly blend prints. So very nice!

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These were based on a very handy-dandy diagram located at the Devil's Nightmare Regiment (a landsknecht group - look under resources, then clothing, then patterns, then Mina's patterns). It's gets you pretty darn close for a first try!

Here's a bit of a close-up showing how much fabric I ended up piecing in (and chopping out for that matter). Fitting hose is no laughing matter. Ok, possibly it is. Possibly there was a lot of laughing. And possibly, somebody's behind got called "Franken-butt." It's remarkably challenging trying to fit things like legs and behinds reasonably closely without things ripping when the victim (um, I mean model) does crazy things like, oh, say... sit in a chair. Or walk. Or, heaven forbid, squat.

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So then, in principle, all I'd have to do here is dye up an appropriate amount of linen, wash it 18 times to prevent future shrinkage (oh my!), and zip up the real things. Yeah. I'm so sure it'll go that way.

Dexter, meanwhile, is happy to serve as a coat-rack of sorts. Or rather, a pants-rack.

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