BA4 Reflective Journal

Week 6

This week was mostly about finishing the toiling process:

This week I sewed all the modified pieces together by sewing the back pieces, the front pieces and the raglan sleeves in to create the main jacket shell. to attach the collar and cape I sandwiched the layers between the neckline and pressed it back.

 I found that with the calico I was able to achieve a dramatic flare and...

 A simple drape off the shoulders - this is a better vision of what the final garment will look like as tthe tartan will be more flimsy and hang better.

A final draft was needed for the collar as I talked to Dinu and he said to bring back the collar and reduce the height slightly or it would be hard to stand.

For the cape, I had to make slight alterations such as; adding more length to the back and front of cape, and creating a dart in the back so to spread out the front to put in the front flaps.

As the previous toiles had not achieved the right fit around the armholes, I moved on to adapt a suit block especially made for raglan sleeves but, traced on the style lines used on the past toiles so to achieve a tight upper half, leading to a flared bottom half.

I made facings for the centre back neckline, the cape front, the collar, centre front edge and centre back facings for the bottom of garment. these were all block fused.

The making of the garment was the same, but the sandwiching of the layers at the neckline was thicker and harder to sew due to the added thickness of the facings.

I think after making this toile I better understand the construction of the facings around the cape front. However, when putting in the lining for the real thing, I think that the cape will have to be top stitched on top of under jacket as a separate piece to avoid puckering.

Initial Designs

I finished up the initial designs stemming from my first lot of initial designs, incorporating the leather trim around the edges of garments, and highlighting the cuts of the clothing.

Here are some:

As you can see I highlighted all the leather trimming and panelling in black so you can get the right idea of how it highlights the shape of each garment. Even though my final design features mostly tartan, I did not want to overdo it by making every element tartan, so I featured the tartan in places like sleeve flaps and panelled sections.