Shorten by HOW MUCH (or more help please on s2172)

I knew when I made up the skirt that I alterations would also be needed on the coat.
On the skirt I had to shorten it by 10inches, to keep the proportions correct I did 1inch off the yoke, 4inches off the main skirt body and 4inches off the pleated hem.

Now then the coat is so long 54 inches and I am so damn short that I have to shorten it to 41, even then this will be as long on me as it is in the pattern picture.

So my question is how do I shorten this by such a huge amount.
Do I,

• alter the paper pattern first and run the risk of the curved edges not matching up.
• make up one back half and front section in calico, then shorten it, take it apart and use that as my pattern.
• I can't think of any other methods.

I also think I may need to forgo the pocket as that may be too low down. I don't mind this.

As on my last post about this outfit, again I greatly appreceate all answers from you lovely sewing bloggers out there,
Many thanks in advance from a very mystifed Sew Vala. xx

Good morning, Taffeta Help please,

Morning everyone, How's your projects going this week?

For me exciting and unsure, Is there anyone out there who could help I am taking a bit of a leap in my abilities I know. But I figure if I dont stretch myself I am not going to learn new techniques. So this is where I am stuck.

I am making Simplicity 2172 just the skirt and coat. I have not made a skirt before so all is new and never worked with taffeta ether. I didn't realise when I bought the fabric it is exactly like the picture on the front.

So to my problem the pleated bottom section, they reaaly stand out and will not hang flat.

I basted and basted.
will they hang flat if the skirt is left to 'hang'?
Should I keep ironing them? Will heat from the iron spoil the fabric?
Should I sew small tucks to keep them in place? or will that just make them billow out in the middle?

I also could not iron the creases out of the fabric. I can iron them in when I first did the pleated section they were fine.

But after much handling around the sewing table they seem to gone gone wild.

Any and all help will be much appreachated , I now have 7 days left to make the coat and also a steam punk cape caot for Mr S as well as the final touched to the Nepeta outfit. So that we can attend expo in style, on Sat 29 Oct. Ok off to the cutting table am I.

Dress 2 of the Plain Pattern project.

Here is dress 2 of the Plain Pattern Project.

 The fabric is an embroidared crepe backed satin. It is actually mint green, but my camera has made it look silver.

The changes I made to this version is I made it longer, I made a belt and this time I did not add the large pointed sleeve cuffs, I also used over 14 metres of white satin binding. Instead of the buttons I used 7 white frog closures, as they seemed more appropriate to the fabric choice.

Here is a close up of the embroidary

This time round I think I got the understanding of the lap technique for the interfacing right, (well I hope so) and the only issue I had was trying to iron the seams flat

Here is a shot of the back neck detail which mirrors the pointed collar.
 
I wore this dress to my nephews' wedding and felt fabulous all night.
The plain pattern project is held by new vintage lady and I bought the pattern

Butterick 6747 dated 1953 from Tina at what-i-found

Have a fantasic week everyone, Sew Vala

How Much....

Just in case you ever wondered this is what 8 1/2 metres of pleated taffeta look like. This is one hell of a hem.

Good days do happen

Its been over a week since my post, it's been rather a roller coster time for me here. I could feel the beginnings of a downer start to hit, so I tried to get as much done as possible. Which in retrospect I think that may have contributed to my bad past couple of days. But hopefully (well no, lets think possitively here) things are on the up.

So here's to the good things that have gone on recently.

I was offered offered a hugh amount of 'stuff''. 

So glad I accepted the offer, it turns out I now have the most amaizing selection of vintage lace, ribbons, binding, metal zips, buttons and metal press-studs.  I dont think I will need to buy any of these ever again.

Also I have finished the Nepeta coat for my daughters cos-play outfit.

A few of the details I learnt while making the coat.

Overlock the edges before adding the pockets. doh!

the pockets, ( something i have not done before)

a new colar detail, also not done before,

And this was also the first time I have set in sleeves. (I think that's what this method is called. any way it is the first time I have done a sleeve that is not sewn as part of the body.)

Thats a lot of firsts' also this was the first time I have adapted a pattern to such an extent. Here is the orignal

Butterick 5468, And finally here is the finished article,

It's very long and big all over 'thats what it should be' says my daughter. I am happy with how it has turned out and the new techniques I learnt. But most importantly the little lady who it is for loves it. And thats what it is all about. So thats the hat made, and the coat, now we can start the tail, shoes bought, trousers bought and t-shirt waiting to be printed. cos-play expo here we come.

A most horrible week

Well what a week it's been.
Taking last Saturday as a starting point, it was my nephews wedding. The kids, (ok not kids, 17 and 20 can hardly be described as kids) decided to stay home and not party. Myself and Mr S set of from Wiltshire to land in Greater Machester some 8 hours later, this journey should normally take no more than 4. So straight to the hotel, shower and turn up some what fashionally very late for the remainder of the reception.

Which was absolutly fabulous. I don't get to see my family very often and it was a perfect time to introduce Mr S to the rest of the family.

Is this the coolest wedding cake ever.

My newphew may be a Sweeney, but he still has what we call the Shaw gene, hence the groom standing on the yellow pages. Aint that the cutest thing.

In the morning we returned from breakfast to get ready for a few family visits to find my phone full of messages. A water pipe in the front garden had burst. Ok, so no visits but setting straight off on the return journey, with Mr S and my eldest daughter on the phone trying to find a plumber who will deal with underground work and on a Sunday, the water board, and angry neighbours.

We return 7 hours later, pipe bypassed for return and repair on the following day. Whew that girl deserves a gold medal for all the things she had to deal with.

The rest of the week hasn't been great ether.

I broke the feed dogs on my machine. So off to find another, I chose one of the old machines currently stored under my bed.

I first thought I would give the Riccar a try, only to discover, it has no lead. I was obversly paying alot of attention when I bought this.

So time to try out one of the old Singers

Tried it on scrap and it worked beautifully steady smooth very neat stiches. Very impressed was I. Until the bobbin ran out then I found the bobbin winding mechanism would not turn, read the manual, found screwdriver. blah blah, still no joy. So back upstairs she went, no way was I bringing the other baby down, Man they are heavy!

Time to dig out my first machine, its a Toyota, but we call her Tesco,

It didn't take long before I remembered why she was in retirement. Very dogy speed control and not able to get attachments, so unable to do button holes but between her and finally taking my overlocker out of the box she has been in for several years never used, I managed to make Loud shirt number 4.

Now needing to do buttonholes has meant I have dragged out The Beast, so named because she is extreamlly heavy and not portable at all.

The all singing all dancing Janome Memmory Craft 11000. Cool eh, well not if I can't find the intsructions. I have figured out the computer bit how to do a button hole but can I figure out the most simple task of how to remove the current foot and attach the button hole foot. Nooooo, So just about now I am feeling pretty useless.

And to top off this moan of a horrible week, My daughters laptop came back, it went away due to software problems, keep freezing. They returned it Thursday as promised with a note 'we have replaced the hard-drive and the key board' excellent she was very happy. Less than 2 miniutes later not so much, the damn keyboard dosn't work. Arrrrrrggggg. So it was collected again this morning.

So what's a girl to do, (for someone who suffers from the bad kind of depression, I have discovered for me, being a 'doer' helps a great deal).  I need to 'do' when I am unable to control things happening around me, my last resort is furnture moving. As soon as the kids hear the scrapping noise of furnture they scarper. Unfortunally due to the ongoing building work, everything is piled high and I am not able to move anything. My youngest will soon be up and asking for this laptop so no browsing for me.

Well theres only one thing for it, it must be ether off to the fabric shops or shoe shopping. I hope your week has been better than mine.

So long you lovely people. Sew Vala xx