Fox Embroidered Beret

My first project for my millinery class--the project outline gave us a choice of a number of styles of sewn hats. I chose to do a side sloped beret. And since decorating was required and beret tops have such a nice flat surface area I decided to turn this into an embroidery project.

I patterned the hat from scratch. And mocked it up to ensure I liked the style and fit. Then I sketched out my design for the top. Once I was satisfied with that, I moved on to the real hat.

I first cut out all my pieces. I picked a beautiful green wool for the fashion fabric and the lining is leftover silk from my Steampunk Corset.

Then I embroidered the top. I had to finish my embroidery completely before moving on, so that the back of the embroidery stitching could be protected by the lining and interfacing layers. That is the part that obviously took the longest.

I sewed the center back seam on my sidebands--lining and fashion layer.

I constructed the hat in the "pancake" method. The tip (top) of the hat has 3 layers: the outer layer, horse hair canvas interfacing, and the silk lining. I basted the 3 layers together.

Next I made some piping trim. This was stitched onto the top layer, piping to the inside, and seam allowance to the outside of the stitch line.

Then I basted on my outer layer of the side band. This was basted to the top, on top of the piping trim, following the same stitch line. Then I flipped it over and sewed the lining sideband to the bottom side, through all the layers.

The next step was to properly grade and notch my seam allowances to cut down on the bulk. Then I flipped the outside sideband over to the bottom. I carefully pressed it--without crushing the piping trim. Now the top of the hat was completely constructed and lined, and I could move on to the final part--the headband.

I basted my sideband layers together along the bottom seam allowance. Then I sewed one edge of the headband to the outside. I graded and notched my seam allowances before ironing and folding over the headband to the inside. This was pinned and then carefully slip-stitched in place by hand.

Presto! A fabulous beret!

Piping Trim Tutorial

Here's a short tutorial on how to make from scratch and apply your own piping trim. This kind of trim makes a really nice, clean finish on a garment. This is a particularly good way to finish the edge of a corset.

This is the trim I made for my first corset, for my corsetry class this semester. It's now finished, but I will be posting some finished pictures once I get it back from my prof. ;D

I really love the beetle green colour of this silk fabric I chose. :) As far as fabric choice goes, I highly recommend using a thin, but strong fabric. Make sure it is not sheer or really stretchy as this will be way harder.

First you cut bias strips 1 1/2" wide. These should be cut on a 45 degrees angle from the selvedge. This will allow the tape to easily stretch along any curves you need to apply it to.

It's easiest to mass produce piping in one long strip and then cut as needed instead of making pieces to fit. Make sure you have enough cord to go along all the edges you are applying it to, and that you cut enough length to cover the cord. (Keep in mind if you are attaching pieces that seam allowance between pieces will make it shorter.)

To attach strips, sew them together as pictured on the left, forming a 90 degree corner, then press flat. The strip will have a 45 degree seam running across it, which makes much less bulk than joining the pieces straight across.

Fold over one edge 1/4" in and stitch 1/8" in from the edge. Make extra sure not to pull on the strip as you fold and stitch, because it will stretch and get thinner, which is not what you want. This creates a nice finished edge for the inside of the garment.

Fold the unfinished edge over the cording and line it up with the stitching on the inside of the tape. Use a zipper foot on the machine to snug your stitch line up against the cording. Again, don't stretch it when sewing. I find it easiest to not pin it and fold it over as you go.

^ The finished product should look like this,  the 2 raw edges meeting on one side, and the other showing a nice finished edge.

To apply it is pretty easy. On the outside of the garment line up the stitch line of the piping with where you want your finished edge. The trim should be nice/finished side up, the folded edge on top of the garment's seam allowance. Pin in place. You should leave about 3/4" hanging off the ends so you can fold it in and finish it nicely afterwards.

You can use this opportunity to further snug the cord inside it's casing by stitching a little closer to the cord than on your previous stitch line.

Fold the finished edge to the inside and carefully hand stitch it down so the stitching is not visible from the outside. If you are having trouble, put in a basting stitch to hold it in place first, you can take that out after. If you have excess seam allowance trim it off first.

The loose ends should be folded up under and neatly hand stitched in place.

Do not iron your trim, otherwise it will flatten it out which kind of defeats the purpose. :P

Asuna Kagurazaka (Knight) - Skirt - Negima

On to the third part of this in depth tutorial for my Asuna Knight costume: the skirt! I will be referring to this costume as the "knight", because I think it is her costume that looks the most like it belongs to a knight. This particular outfit was from the end of the Mahora festival story arc, when they were battling the robot army invasion, featured on the cover of volume 16 of the manga.

Go here to see the sword and wig! To see the rest of my fabulous photoshoot with EleventhPhotograph, go here!

This was actually the piece I started first (because it goes under a lot of things, and has a lot of detailing), but I finished it only about 1 day before the convention, the details being some of the last to be completed.

There was much thought put into colour matching on this costume. As the artist tends to use a lot of reds and pinks in his colouring (even white is shaded with pink) it can be difficult to interpret exactly what colours things should be sometimes. Keeping in mind that colours of bias tape can be rather limited, I decided to go with a very strong royal red, as it complimented the yellow bias tape the best. Also, while I was there I bought pretty much Fabricland's entire stock of yellow bias tape, as I wasn't sure exactly how much I needed... I still have several meters leftover!

The main over layer of the skirt is a full circle skirt with a slice missing out of the front. The pattern was easy enough. First I determined the radius of a 30" circle (the waist height I wanted the skirt to sit at). I wanted the space at the front to be 6" wide, so I subtracted the 6" from 30", leaving me with 24". I divided the 24" into 4 equal panels. Using the radius (string taped to a point, tied to a pencil) I drew an arc that was 8" long. Keeping the tape at the same spot I added the desired skirt length to my radius and drew a second arc below the first. By using the string pulled tight, I marked the side seams based on where the string intersected with the ends of the 8" arc. This gave me the pattern piece pictured above. I then patterned the under pieces to the skirt, and drew a mockup of the emblem shape to determine sizing.

Then I cut out my pieces. Any of the edges that were to have bias tape added were not given seam allowance. For the 4 skirt panels 2 of them were given an extra rectangle of fabric in the seam allowance at the top left and right respectively. The extra fabric would go in the back seam and become the overlap for the skirt closure. 

I then sewed the 4 panels together. At the back closure overlap, I left the seam open. This would be where I added dome fasteners later. The overskirt was then ironed with the seams pressed to one side. The back closure area was also pressed to one side. I then finished all inner seams with a zig-zag stitch. 

First I added the stripe 4" above the bottom edge. This was measured and marked to ensure it was at the right height (and not crooked) before top stitching it on. Then I added my bias tape to the edges of the overskirt.

I used a 1/2" (double-fold) yellow bias tape for the overskirt and a 1/4" bias tape (double-fold) for the edge detailing on the rest of the pieces.

I finished the side edges on the 2 sloped under panels. The edge furthest from the opening was simply rolled over and stitched, the other edges that were actually visible were finished with a bias tape.

I added my bias tape to my under pieces, being careful at the corners (the most difficult part of bias tape).

The main parts of the panels were now done. They looked great laid out together.

This may sound strange, but I actually find it easier to sew on bias tape without pinning it in place. I stop frequently to ensure my edge is properly aligned, and I come to a full stop every time I reach a corner, but otherwise I find it easiest to do it this way.

I sketched up my detailed version of the emblem.

I began work on the under most layer of the skirt, the sheer layer. This piece didn't actually make it to be a part of the final costume, as after I finished it I felt it detracted from the costume more than it added. It was made to be slightly shorter than the over skirt, with 5 thinner panels forming a full circle. The overskirt pattern was used to make these.

The first thing I did for the emblem was to put in the black background and border. I carefully measured and marked out the exact placement of the corners so that it wouldn't be crooked. I first placed down the black piece (same black fabric as my bodice), and then top stitched the bias tape around.

For this piece I carefully studied the reference picture to determine what overlapped with what, so I could determine the order in which the pieces had to be added. In order to make it symmetrical I traced half onto a piece of paper (using a window and some tape), folded it in half on the center line and cut out the pieces.

The first piece to be added was the red "wings", followed by the inner crest shape, the banner and lastly the word "Mahora". The cutouts were all carefully appliquéed in place with a tight zig-zag stitch. This embroidery was not so much difficult as it was finicky and time consuming. This emblem took a few hours to do, as even though it was done on a machine a good portion of the design was hand-turned.

The  crinoline underskirt was stitched together with french seams, the top and bottom edges finished with a thin whit ribbon. It was left partially open on the back seam which is where the closure would be. The idea is that this piece would be hooked into the overskirt, but also be removable.

You can see how they looked together below.

In order to make the under panels hang better I added in darts near where they would attach to the waistband.

I made a foldover waistband. Carefully pinning the pieces in place where I wanted them, I stitched the panels to the waistband, then folded it over and ditch stitched it in place.

Using a great deal of math I had to figure out how many complete triangles I could fit around the bottom edge of the skirt. The problem was that I had to alternate large and small... making the math significantly more complicated. Not sure exactly how I did it, but it was much easier to do all that division in centimeters.

I made my triangle strips and stitched them right sides together.

I was very thankful for my friend Alli's help at this point because she was the one who clipped all the excess fabric in the corners and turned it right way out. I can tell you, it took hours! (I never would have had the time to do it.)

I then painstakingly top stitched the yellow bias tape to the triangle trim. (It was important to do this before attaching the triangle trim to the skirt otherwise it would have been made 10 times more difficult in terms of moving the fabric around and through the machine!) As it was, I had to come to a full stop and set up each corner separately.

Meanwhile, Alli made the underskirt attach via buttons and loops on the inside. I'm regretful that it didn't make it to be part of the final costume, but such is life. My biggest problem with the piece is that it wasn't see-through enough, and it really obstructed the armour on the legs, which was much more important design wise.

The last part was to attach the triangle trim to the inside of the overskirt. The unfinished edges of the trime were first tucked inside the trim and stitched in place. Then the edge of the trim was aligned with the to line of stitching on the bias tape (with a little overlap). Using yellow top thread and a red bobbin I re-stitched over the bias tape stitch line, attaching the trim in a way that was virtually invisible from the outside.

The skirt itself was great to wear, except at particularly windy moments when it got tangled around my legs and made it difficult to walk.

This is probably my favourite of all of Asuna's costumes. It's a shame that this story arc never made it to the anime. Asuna may not be my favourite character, but man does she have some great outfits!