pattern drafting
Jun. 17th, 2008 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7This is kind of funny except not. It's about SCA garb-making, but also about Internet etiquette; I'm feeling very ignorant, overall.
So I figured, OK, I haven't a chance in hell of just draping a bodice on myself. I have no fucking clue how to do it, and wielding pins at myself in a confused and frustrated manner is just a bad idea all over.
So I found a set of instructions that told me how to draft a bodice from my measurements. That sounded like a much better idea.
So I measured the hell out of myself and wrote it all down. Then I got a yardstick, a pen, and opened up a grocery bag so I'd have a big sheet of sturdy paper. (It was supposed to be 18 x 24 inches, which is a bit smaller than a grocery bag, so it seemed perfect.)
I'd only skimmed the instructions. There were no illustrations, which seemed annoying, but I figured, how wrong can it go? It's all plotting points and connecting them with lines.
Except that the instructions were so poorly-written that I've just finished my first attempt and I can't even tell which way is up.
It started off badly-- "Begin by marking a line lengthwise about 2" from the edge of the paper."
Lengthwise? What does that mean? How long a line, if "lengthwise" matters? And which edge?
It only got worse from there. The capper is when I got to step 12. And I quote verbatim.
"From point 8 find the point A the waist measure across the width. Mark that point I and connect B to I."
Firstly, I believe that by "point 8" they meant "point B". But secondly... the waist measure is, well, a hell of a lot more than twenty-four inches. So there's absolutely no way this is going to possibly fit on the paper. I randomly used half the waist measurement instead, since other steps had halved measurements and I was assuming perhaps this was meant to be done on the fold.
It doesn't say that, though. It doesn't even say 'cut 2'. But there's only one bit that even mentions an armhole, so I'm assuming it's not for a one-armed person...
At any rate, I've ended up with something that is a) not a closed shape, and b) not remotely torso-shaped. There were never any instructions on which direction to draw the lines. One instruction told you to use a French curve to connect three points which, at least in my case, weren't actually in a spatial relationship that would allow that. (Two were directly across from one another, and the other was about a foot away straight above the second point.)
So that's a bust. Since I can't drape a pattern, and that's the only source I've found on how to draft one, I am going to have to just sort of wildly guess. I may take one of my farby steel-boned corsets and kind of lie it on some paper and trace around it and add bits where it's not me-shaped... Yeah, I don't know how well that'll work either. Oh well.
But I'm just wondering. The pattern drafting instructions were by an SCA person on her I Am A Expert Yay page, which had contact info. Should I drop her a line and let her know that I found it unusable as written? Of course I'll be nice about it, and point out the steps that just plain weren't worded as real sentences, but do you think that would be a polite thing to do? I mean, since she obviously put a bunch of work into making it and putting it online, and apparently it's part of a handout she uses for courses. (But that begs the question: why have none of the people in the courses ever asked for clarification?)
I promise I would be nice and charming as hell. But what's the etiquette here?
Bah, I dunno.
Next: I am going to build an ark. Seriously! We're getting all of the spring's rain right now. We've had thunderstorms for about eight days in a row. I have filled every rain bucket and barrel and juice bottle and everything, because I'm so used to hoarding water from the dry weather we've had these last, oh, two years, and the rain is still pouring down.
I planted a bunch more beans and herbs because what the hell, man. Gotta compete with the weeds.
I cleaned off the back porch, organized my Pennsic stuff, organized my fabric and sewing notions, and have made a workspace on the floor. Go me! Baby steps toward being a competent human. I try now and then.
Everyone on my f-list is either doing, or researching, or thinking about, cross-play costumes. All these lovely women who can dress as men, fairly-to-extremely convincingly. I've never really been into costuming but it's only making my feelings of betrayal at my stupid, stupid, stupid boobs worse. Oh well! I guess I'll settle for making myself something "menswear-inspired" at some point.
I haven't said so, but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redstapler's David Tennant haircut is hot. And sweetpea_grubb just posted the most amazing shots of her in-progress costume of Maxim from Girl Genius. (A good full-body shot of him is leftmost in the widest panel on this page.) You can't see her teeth or her shoulder armor very well but they're both quite good.
I feel a bit left-out. But no matter! The sun has come out and it is warmer, and I am going to make another attempt at drafting a bodice pattern a different way. There's got to be some way I can actually do this.
I refuse to want a sword, incidentally. Even while a fencing geek I didn't collect weapons, and I'm not about to start now.
And oh-- I tried a Roman method of breast-binding and it was almost slightly successful. If I try with a wider strip of fabric it might really work. I am tentatively excited about this. But how the hell is it already 2:45? Crap, I was going to bake bread today. Guess I better get off the Internet.
So I figured, OK, I haven't a chance in hell of just draping a bodice on myself. I have no fucking clue how to do it, and wielding pins at myself in a confused and frustrated manner is just a bad idea all over.
So I found a set of instructions that told me how to draft a bodice from my measurements. That sounded like a much better idea.
So I measured the hell out of myself and wrote it all down. Then I got a yardstick, a pen, and opened up a grocery bag so I'd have a big sheet of sturdy paper. (It was supposed to be 18 x 24 inches, which is a bit smaller than a grocery bag, so it seemed perfect.)
I'd only skimmed the instructions. There were no illustrations, which seemed annoying, but I figured, how wrong can it go? It's all plotting points and connecting them with lines.
Except that the instructions were so poorly-written that I've just finished my first attempt and I can't even tell which way is up.
It started off badly-- "Begin by marking a line lengthwise about 2" from the edge of the paper."
Lengthwise? What does that mean? How long a line, if "lengthwise" matters? And which edge?
It only got worse from there. The capper is when I got to step 12. And I quote verbatim.
"From point 8 find the point A the waist measure across the width. Mark that point I and connect B to I."
Firstly, I believe that by "point 8" they meant "point B". But secondly... the waist measure is, well, a hell of a lot more than twenty-four inches. So there's absolutely no way this is going to possibly fit on the paper. I randomly used half the waist measurement instead, since other steps had halved measurements and I was assuming perhaps this was meant to be done on the fold.
It doesn't say that, though. It doesn't even say 'cut 2'. But there's only one bit that even mentions an armhole, so I'm assuming it's not for a one-armed person...
At any rate, I've ended up with something that is a) not a closed shape, and b) not remotely torso-shaped. There were never any instructions on which direction to draw the lines. One instruction told you to use a French curve to connect three points which, at least in my case, weren't actually in a spatial relationship that would allow that. (Two were directly across from one another, and the other was about a foot away straight above the second point.)
So that's a bust. Since I can't drape a pattern, and that's the only source I've found on how to draft one, I am going to have to just sort of wildly guess. I may take one of my farby steel-boned corsets and kind of lie it on some paper and trace around it and add bits where it's not me-shaped... Yeah, I don't know how well that'll work either. Oh well.
But I'm just wondering. The pattern drafting instructions were by an SCA person on her I Am A Expert Yay page, which had contact info. Should I drop her a line and let her know that I found it unusable as written? Of course I'll be nice about it, and point out the steps that just plain weren't worded as real sentences, but do you think that would be a polite thing to do? I mean, since she obviously put a bunch of work into making it and putting it online, and apparently it's part of a handout she uses for courses. (But that begs the question: why have none of the people in the courses ever asked for clarification?)
I promise I would be nice and charming as hell. But what's the etiquette here?
Bah, I dunno.
Next: I am going to build an ark. Seriously! We're getting all of the spring's rain right now. We've had thunderstorms for about eight days in a row. I have filled every rain bucket and barrel and juice bottle and everything, because I'm so used to hoarding water from the dry weather we've had these last, oh, two years, and the rain is still pouring down.
I planted a bunch more beans and herbs because what the hell, man. Gotta compete with the weeds.
I cleaned off the back porch, organized my Pennsic stuff, organized my fabric and sewing notions, and have made a workspace on the floor. Go me! Baby steps toward being a competent human. I try now and then.
Everyone on my f-list is either doing, or researching, or thinking about, cross-play costumes. All these lovely women who can dress as men, fairly-to-extremely convincingly. I've never really been into costuming but it's only making my feelings of betrayal at my stupid, stupid, stupid boobs worse. Oh well! I guess I'll settle for making myself something "menswear-inspired" at some point.
I haven't said so, but
redstapler's David Tennant haircut is hot. And sweetpea_grubb just posted the most amazing shots of her in-progress costume of Maxim from Girl Genius. (A good full-body shot of him is leftmost in the widest panel on this page.) You can't see her teeth or her shoulder armor very well but they're both quite good. I feel a bit left-out. But no matter! The sun has come out and it is warmer, and I am going to make another attempt at drafting a bodice pattern a different way. There's got to be some way I can actually do this.
I refuse to want a sword, incidentally. Even while a fencing geek I didn't collect weapons, and I'm not about to start now.
And oh-- I tried a Roman method of breast-binding and it was almost slightly successful. If I try with a wider strip of fabric it might really work. I am tentatively excited about this. But how the hell is it already 2:45? Crap, I was going to bake bread today. Guess I better get off the Internet.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 07:05 pm (UTC)Well done!
I need to start sewing and planning things. I'm not going to even BOTHER thinking about it until after this weekend.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 11:46 pm (UTC)I KNOW. I am embarrassingly hot & bothered at the whole concept. And now I really want a 19th-century cavalryman's outfit. DAMN IT.
Are you any good at sewing?
I am finding it's not... well, it's both not as hard as I'd thought, and way harder. How annoying.
I'm trying to make a bodice to wear for Pennsic, and the one I have is a straight-front Elizabethan-style one, and I'm trying to adapt the pattern to be a curvy-fronted earlier-period one, and am very very skeptical.
Ehh. I can do the big stuff, but the details drive me crazy. Pleh.
Though I admit I'm oddly excited to hand-sew eyelets. What the hell is wrong with me?
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 07:07 pm (UTC)I can just pretend, and hope that others play along. ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 11:49 pm (UTC)I love bazongas, really I do. I just wish that they were... mm... deflatable? Just sometimes?
Eh.
It's not just bazongas in my case, though. I'm entirely the wrong proportions. My shoulders are too narrow, my waist way too high, and I've got these hips, yet no ass to speak of. Even if I lost forty pounds I'd be a shite male impersonator.
I may do myself up some hot obvious-crossdressing outfits at some point. I mean, there were a couple of female pirates who didn't try very hard, right? We'll see. Maybe not for Pennsic, though. But there's the Pirate Festival in Toronto at the end of the summer....
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 08:38 pm (UTC)My oldest is learning to sew just because of all the cool cross play costumes she sees on her gaming and anime sites. We haven't made anything too complicated (I am good at hems-sigh) but she seems to really enjoy it.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 11:52 pm (UTC)I loved dressing up as a kid. I used to wear my dad's uniforms. I just found and scanned one of those old photos, actually-- I wore his Rev War costume one 4th of July. I must've been 13.
I already had obvious boobs and was all the wrong proportions, but didn't know it.
I wore my mom's Rev War outfits at that age too and they fit a bit better. But Dad's were a bit more awesome. (They had guns! And hats with feather plumes!)
Incidentally that's when I learned that wool is actually comfortable in hot weather. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 10:32 pm (UTC)As for the directions, I wouldn't give any feedback on that. If she uses them for classes, then she's right there to help people understand what is meant; and she's more likely to be indignant than to appreciate the concrit.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 11:52 pm (UTC)Hm! I may have to take you up on this!!
I have one more thing I am going to attempt before I run out of ideas/solutions. If that doesn't work, I may need your help after all.
I had forgotten you knew about sewing.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-18 01:09 am (UTC)