One week to go!

This week has been hectic.

After the fitting went so well on Tuesday morning we came back to the studio to start work on getting the robe finished. My first job was to make the right hand sleeve. It was left unaltered at the fitting so it was just a matter of replicating the other. I find the sleeve construction quite complicated. We realised after the toile fitting that the top sleeve of the silk is top-stitched to the lining of the hanging sleeve down the middle in a curve. It is quite complicated to do as we needed to match the curves on both sleeves as well as stretch a smaller curve of red over a larger amount of lining, which takes some manoeuvring.

When I sewed this line it puckered the lining. I think the needle may have not been sharp enough or the tension on the machine too tight but I felt the lines were quite obvious and ruined the aesthetic of the sleeve. It would be seen on the front of the sleeve and therefore I decided to cut out another piece of lining and do it again. I think this was a sensible decision as I did not want to jeopardise the appearance of the garment with a small correctable mistake.

Since this I have been making sure needles are sharp and replacing any that aren’t to prevent this from happening again.

I think the top-stitching looks neat on the corrected sleeve and the curve is smooth.

I next sewed the thin fur around the edges of the sleeves. We decided to join the fur like this rather than in a triangular join as we thought the fur looked smoother.

We didn’t know how to attach the fur as we have never worked with any before. A lot of the work we have done have been educated guesses or trials backed up with research. It is not the most efficient way of working as it means we often have to undo our work but this is titled the Self

Directed Project and we have been proud of how independently we have been working.

I think the corners look quite neat and the fur has gone around the curve neatly