Almighty Hat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hat_plays_dolls) wrote2023-04-01 09:14 pm
hat_plays_dolls) wrote2023-04-01 09:14 pm
Entry tags:
Custom Doll Clothes: Medieval Fantasy Tunic for Cryptid's Skelfthyrnir
So you've seen Skelfthyrnir's basic shirt. You've heard me say my general intention for it was to act as a lining for more colorful tunics. You've even heard that it serves as a mockup, so tunics using fancier fabrics can happen.
I must admit I got fancy basically the day that shirt landed in Cryptid's hands.
Once again using Cynthia Virtue's worksheet as a guideline, and remembering to add a little length to the arms, I adjusted the sleeve heads to be more curved, later-period, and thus fancier, and played in my stash of fat quarters.
This is just a black cotton with a gold metallic overlay printed on, but it sure looks like something woven half of black wool and half of cloth-o-gold.
But I said to myself, I said, "Self," I said, "If I have to do another facing, I will scream."
So I decided to line the whole tunic. No big, dig into my stash of Old Sheet and whomp something up, right? That's what the Old Sheet stash is for, linings and mockups.
But then I said to myself, I said, "Well, it's not a very complicated shape. Instead of lining it before I do the side seams, how much harder could it be to make the whole thing reversible?"
I wanted more fullness in the skirt of this tunic-- it is clearly Super Fancy-- but adding a gore in the front around rows of buttons sounded like a hassle. So there are three gores here-- two side, one center back.
And as seems to be usual for items relating to Cryptid's dolls, the shell ran up really fast. I do have a little bit of a tuck in one sleeve, though later pressings improved it.
Again I started with the sleeve hems, and found my Size 12 quilters' sharps, and discovered... this fabric is too mighty for Size 12 quilters' sharps. I went back up to Size 9 after I did the cuffs and did not look back.
Very rough test on poor Headless Loose-Hipped Tonner Antoinette-- I did use Buster the Stunt Tyler for the "studio" shots, but Anto (a backup member of Buster and the Stunt Tonners) was handy while I was sewing, and it's not like Skelf's clothes are gonna really fit anybody I have.
This belt shipped with the tunic, but doesn't really go with the tunic-- it just needed something to give a better idea of how a Medieval tunic should hang. The belt is a very important accessory-- everything you carry with you hangs from it.
And from the back.
Look, when I say it went together fast, I mean it went together fast.
"Two partial tunics that will be one very soon!" I said to Cryptid something like two and a half days into this hand-sewing project.
"It's crazy to look at and go 'how will that be one. Look at the right, it's already assembled. How? Witchcraft,'" Cryptid replied.
Like this, that's how! Shove the sleeves of the right-side-out black/gold tunic into the sleeves of the inside-out blue tunic, paperclip things together, and start furiously backstitching.
Left a gap big enough to get my hand through in the back hem and turned three days of careful work into an Unsightly Wad.
A wad deeply in need of pressing.
But once pressed, you can tell we're getting somewhere!
I offered Cryptid her choice of seed beads to play buttons-- match the metals or match the fabrics. She wanted the buttons to match the fabric color, so the choice became matte black or shiny black.
She chose shiny.
For the teal side, she mostly just got to approve; I only really have these teal beads, and they're sort of a peacock color. I made sure to only stitch on the tealest of them.
The hems and cuffs were blind-stitched together-- a new skill for me! Achievement unlocked? Anyway, once that was done, it was time for closures and buttons.
And once this picture was taken, it was time to flip that sucker inside out and reveal the teal in all its glory-- very exciting as even I hadn't seen it reversed until that point!
Secret color!
The brown belt looks better with the teal than with the black, but a black belt would look better with both colors-- or a gray one on the teal side.
I do think the buttons turned out well, but recent events have led me to the conclusion that I just... need to get more tiny beads generally.
The buttons on both sides are spaced 5mm apart, because any farther didn't look right. I was able to travel the thread on the blue and keep it from showing on the black, but since I needed to mark the blue so I could see what I was doing on the black side... the blue looks a little different.
The cuffs just sorta do this no matter what.
Black thread showing under the placket.
Also I got excessively clever with my snaps-- instead of picking black or silver, I put black on the black side and silver on the blue side and just alternated which had male and which had female snaps.
I did not, however, think to use an even number of snaps. So I have one mismatched snap in my sewing box.
The back side of blue!
I will admit, getting that back gore set in was trickier than anticipated, both times.
Top of the back gusset, blue...
... And black. Is it worth putting a seam up the center back to avoid this in future? Maybe.
And I got one black blind stitch showing through on the teal side.
How the closures work.
And how the buttons work!
On an actual tunic, you wouldn't be able to do it this way-- even if you made it reversible, you'd have to get clever with buttons and buttonholes. But because I knew I was using snaps, faux buttons were just the ticket.
... It's not like I'm going to try making actual cloth buttons. I'm sure it's possible in 1:4, it sounds perfectly crazy-making. There are very few limits to what full-scale things you can't do in 1:4, but I have a firm policy of not making anything that I know, going into it, would cost me SAN points. I do not make jeans and I do not make 1:4 scale cloth buttons.
... I'd say 'I don't make buttonholes' but I'm good at buttonhole stitch so I really should try it someday.
Anyway.
Blue side all spread out-- check out those seams!
And black side as lining. This time, instead of sending a perfectly pressed tunic, I spritzed it with water, manipulated some folds into it, and left it to dry overnight. I think it helped add some weight to it.
Nothing went catastrophically wrong this time, which was nice, and the whole build-- from re-drafting patterns to taking final photos, including drying time for those nice folds-- took about a week. Because there's something going on with projects I take on for the Lord of the Forest and his friends, they just go faster somehow.
I will say that without the lining, with a regular turned-over placket for closures and a self-lined collar, doing this tunic as one layer would take me about a day, day and a half, if I just pressed it pristine and didn't dry folds into it. In a cotton or something as easy to work with. In something slippery or prone to fraying, that could add more time.
But I'm having a lot of fun, and I can't wait for some other items to get where they're going-- I want to sew more for that dragon girl, and it'll be a lot easier once she arrives to at least get some measurements from.
But I moseyed on down to my local post office and shipped off the tunic, and it arrived safely in Texas yesterday! So I have not only my own pics to share, but some of Cryptid's!
I may also have sent some other bits and bobs.
Cryptid wanted the tunic shipped on the teal side, which was fine by me as it meant I didn't have to turn it again. And really that teal looks fantastic on him-- Cryptid picked that out of a couple of options (I need more teal fabric that is not either 'tiny florals I picked out thinking Dollhouse Victorians' or 'oh this will work well for [Specific Monster High Character]!') and it was, in fact, an excellent choice.
From the back! On which you can see a thing I messed up. Don't worry, I'll tell you what it was in a moment.
Okay, so, on the shirt, the shoulder seam is off the shoulder because of the flat sleeve head and armscye, but this is a fancier tunic, so I eyeballed a lot of Cryptid's pics of Skelf in the shirt, sloped the shoulder, and drew a curved armscye and sleeve head for a nicer fit.
And I went in about 1cm too far on the shoulder seam. It sits right on Skelf's shoulder joint, instead of on the peak of his shoulder. Luckily, somehow, I also made the sleeves of his tunic a centimeter longer than they should have been, so it still fits and looks okay, it's just not quite perfectly tailored.
I will fix that on the pattern before I send the pattern to Cryptid.
3/4 back view, and I am a little worried about that belt. It's antique leather and I just do not know how long it's gonna hold up. I should make another black belt, I really should.
He's just so ding-danged elegant. I like looking at him.
And I do think his cloak will go well with either color of the tunic. (That's not a tear on his sleeve, his moss mat sheds.)
I did make the beaded antler ornaments and the collar-- see the two silver rings on the front tines of his antlers? Those got sent in the tribute box, in a baggie marked 'do these fit on his antlers?' because that's how long I'd been planning beaded antler decorations. Because it sounded like fun and I've been messing with miniaturizing patterns from Beadsmagic so I was pretty confident about that loopy bit.
Also, on the next tunic, that collar piece is getting extended by 2cm on either side. Either I messed up my seam allowance or measured something funky, but like the shoulders, it looks good on him without quite looking how it should.
... Given Skelf's neck, I could also make it higher.
I don't tabletop but Cryptid does.
Seriously those Sui hands are just so ding-dang elegant.
Really, just a handsome fella. I'm very pleased with how the whole thing came out. And Cryptid's been having fun, which is the important part, and of course Cryptid's cat has, I have been told, had to inspect everything because I spent about 50% of my sewing time with my cat between my knees.
The Lord of the Forest has no pants. The Lord of the Forest needs no pants.
The Lord of the Forest has two shiny tunics in the storage space of but one!
And a second antler ornament, and collar, and another antique leather belt, but this one, I think, will hold up nicer.
And another collar, but the blue charlottes (as in the antler beads) and blue goldstone rounds are very subtle against his black neck.
... Might be a reason for a true-blue tunic... Or navy. I'll have to check my stash.
There is a lot of excess length in the sleeves, but that's deliberate to a point-- I noticed when Skelf bent his elbows in just the shirt, the cuffs rode up kind of a lot. Also it gives some really great texture with that shiny fabric, both colors.
I will admit, one of the things I kind of envy about BJDs as opposed to the dolls I collect is how gosh-darned poseable they are... but I've had one resin doll, and she didn't do it for me, and I don't like inset eyes on the scales of dolls I like, and... and, and, and, basically.
Am I going to become a BJD collector, probably not, they're expensive and I'm terribly picky.
Am I having a lot of fun sewing for Skelfthyrnir?
Yes. Yes I am.
I may need to be stopped, in fact. Cryptid should absolutely not send me Clover's measurements because for some reason my brain wants to make that little bun a Viking apron dress, and I'd have to navigate a tail slit.
The antler ornament is made of some extremely tiny vintage charlottes-- the deep bright blue-- and some 15/0 beads in black and a lighter blue. Because if I see tiny beads in person, I have a really hard time resisting them.
From the back!
... Yeah, I need to send a wide black belt, don't I? I have more of the links I've been using as belt buckles. (Is that historically accurate, no. Is it cheaper than buying real mini buckles, yes, and if I can't get actual Medieval buckle shapes either way, then I'm gonna keep digging through my findings.)
Layers all together! Got the shirt protecting Skelf's painted chest from that internal row of buttons, which was a benefit I hadn't hit on when I was making the shirt, because how does one plan for Sudden Inspiration Reversible Tunic?
But the shirt will also protect him from dye transfer.
I'm just so darned pleased with how everything's been turning out. Are there things I'd like to tweak? Yep! But I will tweak them in the next iteration, and enjoy playing dolls with my friend. ... Not simply because the Lord of the Forest's fantastical qualities make him an excellent candidate for 'somewhere to send stuff I've always kinda wanted to make, but know damn well I won't use or display on my own dolls.'
That's just a bonus.
... Not to say I don't kinda want to make historical clothes for my Monster High dolls, but I'd want to start with Draculaura and Dracula, and it's shockingly hard to research fifth-century fashion trends in what-is-now-Romania if you only speak and Google in English. Skelfthyrnir lives in make-believe land so I am absolved of strict adherence to historical research, and can use fancy shiny fat quarters if I wanna.
Like what I do and want to help me feed my cats, but don't need anything I have for sale on eBay? You can always support me on Patreon or throw some change in my tip jar.
I must admit I got fancy basically the day that shirt landed in Cryptid's hands.
Once again using Cynthia Virtue's worksheet as a guideline, and remembering to add a little length to the arms, I adjusted the sleeve heads to be more curved, later-period, and thus fancier, and played in my stash of fat quarters.
This is just a black cotton with a gold metallic overlay printed on, but it sure looks like something woven half of black wool and half of cloth-o-gold.
But I said to myself, I said, "Self," I said, "If I have to do another facing, I will scream."
So I decided to line the whole tunic. No big, dig into my stash of Old Sheet and whomp something up, right? That's what the Old Sheet stash is for, linings and mockups.
But then I said to myself, I said, "Well, it's not a very complicated shape. Instead of lining it before I do the side seams, how much harder could it be to make the whole thing reversible?"
I wanted more fullness in the skirt of this tunic-- it is clearly Super Fancy-- but adding a gore in the front around rows of buttons sounded like a hassle. So there are three gores here-- two side, one center back.
And as seems to be usual for items relating to Cryptid's dolls, the shell ran up really fast. I do have a little bit of a tuck in one sleeve, though later pressings improved it.
Again I started with the sleeve hems, and found my Size 12 quilters' sharps, and discovered... this fabric is too mighty for Size 12 quilters' sharps. I went back up to Size 9 after I did the cuffs and did not look back.
Very rough test on poor Headless Loose-Hipped Tonner Antoinette-- I did use Buster the Stunt Tyler for the "studio" shots, but Anto (a backup member of Buster and the Stunt Tonners) was handy while I was sewing, and it's not like Skelf's clothes are gonna really fit anybody I have.
This belt shipped with the tunic, but doesn't really go with the tunic-- it just needed something to give a better idea of how a Medieval tunic should hang. The belt is a very important accessory-- everything you carry with you hangs from it.
And from the back.
Look, when I say it went together fast, I mean it went together fast.
"Two partial tunics that will be one very soon!" I said to Cryptid something like two and a half days into this hand-sewing project.
"It's crazy to look at and go 'how will that be one. Look at the right, it's already assembled. How? Witchcraft,'" Cryptid replied.
Like this, that's how! Shove the sleeves of the right-side-out black/gold tunic into the sleeves of the inside-out blue tunic, paperclip things together, and start furiously backstitching.
Left a gap big enough to get my hand through in the back hem and turned three days of careful work into an Unsightly Wad.
A wad deeply in need of pressing.
But once pressed, you can tell we're getting somewhere!
I offered Cryptid her choice of seed beads to play buttons-- match the metals or match the fabrics. She wanted the buttons to match the fabric color, so the choice became matte black or shiny black.
She chose shiny.
For the teal side, she mostly just got to approve; I only really have these teal beads, and they're sort of a peacock color. I made sure to only stitch on the tealest of them.
The hems and cuffs were blind-stitched together-- a new skill for me! Achievement unlocked? Anyway, once that was done, it was time for closures and buttons.
And once this picture was taken, it was time to flip that sucker inside out and reveal the teal in all its glory-- very exciting as even I hadn't seen it reversed until that point!
Secret color!
The brown belt looks better with the teal than with the black, but a black belt would look better with both colors-- or a gray one on the teal side.
I do think the buttons turned out well, but recent events have led me to the conclusion that I just... need to get more tiny beads generally.
The buttons on both sides are spaced 5mm apart, because any farther didn't look right. I was able to travel the thread on the blue and keep it from showing on the black, but since I needed to mark the blue so I could see what I was doing on the black side... the blue looks a little different.
The cuffs just sorta do this no matter what.
Black thread showing under the placket.
Also I got excessively clever with my snaps-- instead of picking black or silver, I put black on the black side and silver on the blue side and just alternated which had male and which had female snaps.
I did not, however, think to use an even number of snaps. So I have one mismatched snap in my sewing box.
The back side of blue!
I will admit, getting that back gore set in was trickier than anticipated, both times.
Top of the back gusset, blue...
... And black. Is it worth putting a seam up the center back to avoid this in future? Maybe.
And I got one black blind stitch showing through on the teal side.
How the closures work.
And how the buttons work!
On an actual tunic, you wouldn't be able to do it this way-- even if you made it reversible, you'd have to get clever with buttons and buttonholes. But because I knew I was using snaps, faux buttons were just the ticket.
... It's not like I'm going to try making actual cloth buttons. I'm sure it's possible in 1:4, it sounds perfectly crazy-making. There are very few limits to what full-scale things you can't do in 1:4, but I have a firm policy of not making anything that I know, going into it, would cost me SAN points. I do not make jeans and I do not make 1:4 scale cloth buttons.
... I'd say 'I don't make buttonholes' but I'm good at buttonhole stitch so I really should try it someday.
Anyway.
Blue side all spread out-- check out those seams!
And black side as lining. This time, instead of sending a perfectly pressed tunic, I spritzed it with water, manipulated some folds into it, and left it to dry overnight. I think it helped add some weight to it.
Nothing went catastrophically wrong this time, which was nice, and the whole build-- from re-drafting patterns to taking final photos, including drying time for those nice folds-- took about a week. Because there's something going on with projects I take on for the Lord of the Forest and his friends, they just go faster somehow.
I will say that without the lining, with a regular turned-over placket for closures and a self-lined collar, doing this tunic as one layer would take me about a day, day and a half, if I just pressed it pristine and didn't dry folds into it. In a cotton or something as easy to work with. In something slippery or prone to fraying, that could add more time.
But I'm having a lot of fun, and I can't wait for some other items to get where they're going-- I want to sew more for that dragon girl, and it'll be a lot easier once she arrives to at least get some measurements from.
But I moseyed on down to my local post office and shipped off the tunic, and it arrived safely in Texas yesterday! So I have not only my own pics to share, but some of Cryptid's!
I may also have sent some other bits and bobs.
Cryptid wanted the tunic shipped on the teal side, which was fine by me as it meant I didn't have to turn it again. And really that teal looks fantastic on him-- Cryptid picked that out of a couple of options (I need more teal fabric that is not either 'tiny florals I picked out thinking Dollhouse Victorians' or 'oh this will work well for [Specific Monster High Character]!') and it was, in fact, an excellent choice.
From the back! On which you can see a thing I messed up. Don't worry, I'll tell you what it was in a moment.
Okay, so, on the shirt, the shoulder seam is off the shoulder because of the flat sleeve head and armscye, but this is a fancier tunic, so I eyeballed a lot of Cryptid's pics of Skelf in the shirt, sloped the shoulder, and drew a curved armscye and sleeve head for a nicer fit.
And I went in about 1cm too far on the shoulder seam. It sits right on Skelf's shoulder joint, instead of on the peak of his shoulder. Luckily, somehow, I also made the sleeves of his tunic a centimeter longer than they should have been, so it still fits and looks okay, it's just not quite perfectly tailored.
I will fix that on the pattern before I send the pattern to Cryptid.
3/4 back view, and I am a little worried about that belt. It's antique leather and I just do not know how long it's gonna hold up. I should make another black belt, I really should.
He's just so ding-danged elegant. I like looking at him.
And I do think his cloak will go well with either color of the tunic. (That's not a tear on his sleeve, his moss mat sheds.)
I did make the beaded antler ornaments and the collar-- see the two silver rings on the front tines of his antlers? Those got sent in the tribute box, in a baggie marked 'do these fit on his antlers?' because that's how long I'd been planning beaded antler decorations. Because it sounded like fun and I've been messing with miniaturizing patterns from Beadsmagic so I was pretty confident about that loopy bit.
Also, on the next tunic, that collar piece is getting extended by 2cm on either side. Either I messed up my seam allowance or measured something funky, but like the shoulders, it looks good on him without quite looking how it should.
... Given Skelf's neck, I could also make it higher.
I don't tabletop but Cryptid does.
Seriously those Sui hands are just so ding-dang elegant.
Really, just a handsome fella. I'm very pleased with how the whole thing came out. And Cryptid's been having fun, which is the important part, and of course Cryptid's cat has, I have been told, had to inspect everything because I spent about 50% of my sewing time with my cat between my knees.
The Lord of the Forest has no pants. The Lord of the Forest needs no pants.
The Lord of the Forest has two shiny tunics in the storage space of but one!
And a second antler ornament, and collar, and another antique leather belt, but this one, I think, will hold up nicer.
And another collar, but the blue charlottes (as in the antler beads) and blue goldstone rounds are very subtle against his black neck.
... Might be a reason for a true-blue tunic... Or navy. I'll have to check my stash.
There is a lot of excess length in the sleeves, but that's deliberate to a point-- I noticed when Skelf bent his elbows in just the shirt, the cuffs rode up kind of a lot. Also it gives some really great texture with that shiny fabric, both colors.
I will admit, one of the things I kind of envy about BJDs as opposed to the dolls I collect is how gosh-darned poseable they are... but I've had one resin doll, and she didn't do it for me, and I don't like inset eyes on the scales of dolls I like, and... and, and, and, basically.
Am I going to become a BJD collector, probably not, they're expensive and I'm terribly picky.
Am I having a lot of fun sewing for Skelfthyrnir?
Yes. Yes I am.
I may need to be stopped, in fact. Cryptid should absolutely not send me Clover's measurements because for some reason my brain wants to make that little bun a Viking apron dress, and I'd have to navigate a tail slit.
The antler ornament is made of some extremely tiny vintage charlottes-- the deep bright blue-- and some 15/0 beads in black and a lighter blue. Because if I see tiny beads in person, I have a really hard time resisting them.
From the back!
... Yeah, I need to send a wide black belt, don't I? I have more of the links I've been using as belt buckles. (Is that historically accurate, no. Is it cheaper than buying real mini buckles, yes, and if I can't get actual Medieval buckle shapes either way, then I'm gonna keep digging through my findings.)
Layers all together! Got the shirt protecting Skelf's painted chest from that internal row of buttons, which was a benefit I hadn't hit on when I was making the shirt, because how does one plan for Sudden Inspiration Reversible Tunic?
But the shirt will also protect him from dye transfer.
I'm just so darned pleased with how everything's been turning out. Are there things I'd like to tweak? Yep! But I will tweak them in the next iteration, and enjoy playing dolls with my friend. ... Not simply because the Lord of the Forest's fantastical qualities make him an excellent candidate for 'somewhere to send stuff I've always kinda wanted to make, but know damn well I won't use or display on my own dolls.'
That's just a bonus.
... Not to say I don't kinda want to make historical clothes for my Monster High dolls, but I'd want to start with Draculaura and Dracula, and it's shockingly hard to research fifth-century fashion trends in what-is-now-Romania if you only speak and Google in English. Skelfthyrnir lives in make-believe land so I am absolved of strict adherence to historical research, and can use fancy shiny fat quarters if I wanna.
Like what I do and want to help me feed my cats, but don't need anything I have for sale on eBay? You can always support me on Patreon or throw some change in my tip jar.