Road Trip to Hansons and Fabric Warehouse

Today Kelly and I ventured to Hanson's Fabrics in Sturminster Newton. I've shopped there many times before and have always been impressed with their selection of buttons. I spoke to Chris prior to the trip and he gave me free reign on the detail to the costume. Kelly and me re-visited our historical research but also considered detail from a military perspective. We searched the store for something plain and bold yet striking to the eye and we found the perfect buttons. The buttons came in different sizes as well so I got the largest size so that the two costumes will stay in proportion with one another. I then thought a slightly more detailed button would be nice for the waistcoat seeing as it won't have as much embroidery work as the coat and again we found a nice authentic button available in different sizes.

On the way back to Bournemouth we stopped off at Fabric Warehouse in Poole to collect the top fabric for the waistcoats. I'd already collected a sample and studied it with Kelly and we mutually decided that it was an ideal fabric for the waistcoat. Chris's current waistcoat has a large pattern on it and we decided with Chris that we would have to work with a plainer fabric with a small or even no pattern so that Eddie won't get lost in it.
Now we have all of our top fabric and have detail to add the project is getting even more exciting and Chris is eager to see the costume as a finished piece.

Tutorial/Progress Report No.3

So today I found myself in a little trouble with Graham..I've slacked a lot on keeping my blog up to date recently so we discussed making sure that I REFLECT, REFLECT, REFLECT! I think I tend to do it naturally anyway and evaluate everything I'm doing, I knew I had more blog work that needed doing, the costume has just taken priority for the past 2 weeks, but I'm all up to date now and have ready through everything and feeling very happy with my progress so far.

Decoration/Finishings consideration

Today we have been considering trimmings and braids for the costumes. I spoke to Katerina about where she purchased the trimmings for Chris's current costume and she recommended Fucotex to me. Kelly and I paid a visit to the costume archive to study the Fucotex files and samples. I liked nearly all of the trimmings they had available but one design in particular stood out the most as it was red white and gold and had a very striking pattern that I thought was quite symbolic when referring to military features. In contrast the design has a natural element to it with oak leaves. As Chris is a country side town crier, both Kelly and I agreed that this design was more than appropriate.
The design is wide and will really stand out on the centre front of the coat. It has a narrower option which will be ideal for the cuffs on the sleeves and even a matching design for pockets.
The images below are of the design I have chosen, I have sent the images to Chris and he has approved them happily.





The image below is the trim that Kelly has chosen for Eddie. We both agreed that his costume would need something different as he is so small. This white and gold design is a lot narrower and will highlight the detail in Chris's costume really well.

Dyeing Moleskin For Breeches

Looking at my historical research I've decided that an antique tone would be best for the colour of the breeches. Maybe an antique gold? This would work really well for the colour theme I'm working with.

The image below isn't quite the right colour for what I aspire to achieve but it's a really good reference for me to have as it gives me a good idea of how the finished pair will look.

This is the moleskin I dyed today using the following recipe

• 5 litres water
• 1 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 tsp Golden glow
• 1/4 tsp Reindeer beige
  

There was 3 1/2 metres of moleskin to dye and the dried result was quite patchy and the colour is still a little too pale. What I will do now is make sure the fabric doesn't shrink, then cut my pattern pieces and re-dye them. I'll also add another 1/4 tsp of golden glow to get a more golden tone and will leave them in the dye for at least another 10 mins.

Chris Brown in Action

I'm posting a link that gives an insight into how versatile Chris Brown's town crying career is. Knowing the sort of "gigs" he cries for allows me to be a bit more adventurous with creating Chris's costume as I really want it to make a statement and reflect Chris's personality.

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/endorseitindorset/2009/photos-ChrisBrownTownCrier-EndorseItInDorset09-KAW.shtml

The images provided on the link above really show how much of a contribution the costume gives to the event and Chris's role as town crier.

Week 7 Review

Well now this week has been exceptionally successful and I'm feeling extra confident about the project now. Tuesday's fitting was a huge success and everything fitted beautifully with the odd bits in need of a couple of cms decrease which I was expecting anyway. Chris was really pleased with how the costume has come along. Obviously being a toile fitting it is still very much a blank canvas, but he was happy with the cut, the style, lengths and fits, and I had some research to show him which was more than exciting. I asked Kelly if she would assist me alongside Graham in the fitting. I thought this would be wise as we scheduled with Chris to fit Eddie ourselves at his house later that evening so that the fitting wouldn't interfere with Eddie being at school. This meant that any fit/design adjustments that were made to my costume could be logged and transferred to the fitting for Kelly's.
After the fitting both Kelly and me decided that it was highly necessary to purchase our top fabrics ASAP. Graham recommended that we source a box fabric for the frock coat. We visited the archive and really liked the samples from H.E Box Ltd in Weymouth. I gave them a call to make sure they had the samples available and had plenty of it, to which they said they did,so Kelly and myself set out on a brief road trip to Weymouth. The manager of the store was so helpful and within the half hour of being there we learned an awful lot about the fabric we would soon be working with. The Melton fabric that we chose is a very popular fabric for Town Crier costumes so already that was really good to know. The fabric is obviously a great success for this particular area so at least we can be sure we have made the right decision about that. The fabric is also a lot wider than average which is also good as my patterns in particular are quite large and I need to accommodate for all of the pleats. The one thing we have to be extra careful with when cutting the fabric is the direction of the grain. Very much like Velvet the fabric lies smoothly in only one direction and can be noticeable to the eye if laying incorrectly. This is a fabric I have never worked with before so it will be interesting to see how well/easily I can work with it, and at nearly £30 p/mt I really am going to have to take extra care when cutting it. Kelly and I left the store with 6.5mts of deep red Melton and 3.5 mts of off white moleskin for the breeches. The rest of the week was then spent altering our pattern pieces after the toile fitting, and cutting our top fabric...SUCCESS!!

Tutorial/Progress Report No.2

Second tutorial with Graham today and it has been really helpful. We discussed fabrics and progress with the project so far and all in all everything seems to be going ok and I'm feeling confident now that Graham is happy with my progress. I've informed Graham of regular discussions with Chris and it seems that everyone is happy to let me go about everything how I wish to as long as everything is decided via Chris first. The first fitting went really well so I can now source my fabrics and start considering decoration thoroughly.

Hello Top Fabric

So Kelly and me found the perfect and less time consuming way to get all the patterns cut and it involved spreading all 6.5mts across 4 studio work benches. We managed to get all the pieces on with enough remainding for sleeves and cuffs. We've managed to get the grain lying correctly through all pieces...good thing we opted to get an extra half a metre.

Now the breeches pieces are cut with a little extra allowance just incase of shrinkage and ready to dye for a 4th time.

Road Trip to H.E Box

Today myself and Kelly have made a trip to H.E Box Fabrics in Weymouth to choose our top fabric for the coat and breeches. Prior to the trip we visited our costume archive to study some H.E Box samples and we decided that the fabric was exactly what we needed. The store was also recommended to us by our tutor Graham so we made the trip and explored our options. The store manager was really helpful, he said he supplies a lot of his stock to local town criers so he was really quick to recommend particular fabrics. We had to keep in mind that the colours we are working with are red, white and gold, and the store had a limited amount of tones in those colours. Luckily we found a deep red medium weight melton for the coat and an off white moleskin for the breeches. Seeing as the moleskin is a pale colour we have made a mutual decision to dye the fabric to get a nice antique gold colour. We have already suggested this to Chris and he's more than happy to have gold.
The store manager was very helpful and gave us some good advice due to working with our purchased fabrics. The grain of the Melton lies on the length of the fabric so we will have to make sure that we take good care over cutting it. The fabric only feels smooth if the grain is lying in the right position (downwards) and will be noticeable if the patterns are cut differently. Because of this it meant we had to get quite a lot of fabric, I knew that I was going to need approximately a metre per pattern piece as the width wouldn't accommodate for two. So we had 6.5 metres of Melton cut just to be safe, and 3.5 metres of moleskin.

We are now ready to cut out our pieces in top fabric tomorrow and going by what I have learnt about the fabric today, I am going to allow a whole day to do it.
I'm feeling even more confident about the project now that I have the fabric that I need. It's good to know that I've gained some advice about the fabric along the way and I'm looking forward to putting pattern pieces together at the end of the week.

1st Fitting

This morning Chris came in to the studio to have the first fitting and I'm so relieved to know that it was highly successful with very few changes/alterations to be made.

Breeches

The breeches were a really good fit, I've not made them before so I was really pleased with what I'd produced as a first attempt. Chris said they felt nice and spacious and he was comfortable in them whilst sitting and standing.
A small list of alterations below now show what I need to apply to my patterns before cutting out in top fabric.

• Waistband is currently 4cms, make this bigger by a further 2.5cms (6.5cms).
• Heighten the CB by a further 5cms.
• Take the waistband in by 7cms but leave breeches as they are and gather into the waistband.
• Attach a pair of elastic braces via the waistband.
• Use a 5cm knee band to fasten breeches just below the knee

Waistcoat

After fitting the breeches I got Chris into the waistcoat, my first thought was that I would have to snip into my allowance around the armhole, I was correct. I'd taken the waistcoat pattern straight from the coat pattern so I knew I would have to design the new armhole while the waistcoat was on Chris. In order to be historically accurate the armhole needed to be a lot bigger in order to make room for a wide sleeved loose fitting shirt and also for comfort/movement purposes. I cut the new armhole and Chris was pleased with how it looked and felt. Another slight adjustment was at the back of the waistcoat, again in order to be historically correct the CB should be slightly shorter than the front. Again I made a list of what I'd need to apply to my patterns but all in all the waistcoat fitted very nicely.

• See toile for new armhole - apply to other side and pattern
• Keep waistcoat completely straight at CF from waist to hem for fastening
• Raise hem at CB by 8cms

Next was to fit the coat and again I was very pleased to see how well it was fitting. I was intrigued to see how the pleats were going to look once on the body and how well they would fall in the length. What with the toile being made out of calico it wasn't an ideal representation of how they will look as the fabric was nowhere near heavy enough but it gave me a general idea and Chris was very pleased with how the costume was looking as an ensemble.
When I put the sleeves together I knew they were going to be narrow even though I allowed extra allowance. Chris not only wants the sleeves to be nice and wide for historial purposes but also because he often has to use crutches and would like them to side inside the sleeves comfortably. I removed the sleeves from the toile and fitted them with the crutches which made me feel a lot more confident about making them to exactly how Chris needs them.

• The CF will fasten to just above the waist (approx) and then fall open to reveal waistcoat underneath
• Let out CF by 2.5cms to allow a little more room
• Drop all pleats by approx 2.5cms (see toile for markings)
• Drop this measurement in the length
• At CB pleat move seam 3cms (see toile)
• Widen sleeve by 5cms from head to wrist to allow for extra wideness for design purposes and to accommodate for crutches
• See toile for new sleeve length - shortened at wrist - historical purposes for frill on shirt

Week 6 Review

This week has been hectic yet productive. I managed to get back on track with getting my toile completely finished and ready for the fitting in plenty of time. The good thing about this costume is that there aren't that many seams to sew together as yet so getting it together took no time at all really. Working alongside Kelly this week has been a big learning curve. We've had to make sure that both costumes are in proportion with one another and that they are exactly the same cut. Seeing as Chris has a fuller figure I made sure that I allowed extra so that hopefully the only adjustments that will need to be made during the fitting are the odd bits of 'taking in'. I've also had quite a lot of contact with Chris this week which has been helpful. The odd minor yet vital information that I have needed is now all logged in black and white and so hopefully there won't be too many queries during the fitting on Tuesday. Origianlly I planned to fit Chris myself with no assistance at his house on Monday evening, however I later agreed with Graham that it would be best to have him assist me with it at the studio in case of any issues occuring. Over the past couple of days I managed to collect some more relevant research to show to Chris and I'm now fully prepared for Tueday's fitting session.

Tutorial/Progress Report No.1

Had first tutorial with Graham this morning, over all it was a little vague, just exploring general ideas and looking at first bundle of collected research, but I decided to make a lot of contact with Chris this week in order to gain as much primary information as possible. This should get the ball rolling nicely, once I've discussed with Chris, everything should fall into place and seem much clearer.

Week 5 Review - EASTER BREAK

Ok so it's exactly one week tomorrow until the first toile fitting. I'm still very much unwell and feeling far from healthy which is why I'm not returning to uni for the first day of term tomorrow. I have spoken to Kelly and told her I won't be around but she is feeling pretty confident about getting her toile ready anyway so that's all ok. I've put the majority of my toile together now, just got the sleeves and a cuff to prepare. But I'm hoping I'll be well enough to return to Bournemouth mid-week or so, so there will be plenty of time for me to get everything ready for the fitting. Reflecting on the unfortunate happenings and inconvenience of the past few weeks I've learnt that anything can go wrong or interfere with something at any time and there is no way you can be prepared for it. So I've definitely figured that even though I'm behind schedule now and haven't been able to carry out much project work over the Easter break, I've still managed to try my best to accomplish as much as possible and as a result am still feeling confident that I can make this costume to a high standard reflecting the requirements of the client. Blood tests have confirmed Galndular Fever and I'll undoubtedly be suffering with it for a minimum of 12 weeks, but if I look after myself (which means no stress, no alcohol, and no lacking sleep) and pace myself wisely for the remainding duration of the project I will hopefully be able to meet the intended deadline with an almost finished costume.

Week 4 Review - EASTER BREAK

Right so, so far the Easter break has been far from relaxing and enjoyable. I finished my first course of antibiotics on Wednesday night and was feeling much better. I even managed to get out of the house on Thursday and managed to put my toile together in the evening. I was called to work at the shop (Clarks) where I have been an employee for 5 years now yesterday morning. I was more than happy to say yes as I've been practically bed bound for well over a week now. But....I woke up yesterday morning with a very swollen throat and was rushed to morning surgery to be checked out. I've now had a double dose of antibiotics prescribed to me and walked away with a very attractive waterproof plaster on my right arm, (protecting the minute wound from a blood test) and also a soon-to-be-confirmed diagnosis for Glandular Fever. So not only did I manage to contract Tonsilitus and get rid of it, but I also managed to allow it to return ten times worse!! So this now means my work placement has been canceled (doctor's orders) and I'm bed bound yet again! So I don't even know if I'll be making it back to uni on time for the start of term now. However I am more than able to use my laptop for further researching while I suffer (cue the violins) and I'm in touch with Chris Brown via text and e-mail (not phone as I have no voice) if there are any questions I may have for him. So my Easter break very much consists of further researching via internet in bed, socialising via internet in bed, and recovering as fast as I can, not via internet, but in bed.