Update: Galliano pirate jacket and vampire vest

I posted about finishing the Galliano Pirate Jacket quite a while ago, and also about making this sweet vampire inspired vest. The photos I had of them back then aren't the best, so I thought I would do a little update.

Bria modeled the jacket for me so I could take a couple better photos.

She also took some photos of me last month, and I wore my long vest:

Holy hell I actually finished the Victorian project.

Alright! So, earlier this year I was hired to do some art for a card game, Moriarty's Machinations. Part of my involvement with the game was dressing up in character as Irene Adler to advertise at a couple conventions, including the Boston Festival of Indie Games. (We won the award for best indie tabletop game by the way, which was super exciting!)

It has been a long time since I posted about my Victorian costume. Check out the project's tag for all the related posts. I started it back in 2011, as an independent study course in college, and then didn't finish it after the class was done. There was only a couple things left to do by the time I got this job that required me to have a period costume, so it finally motivated me to finish.

Here's my original rendering. I think I got pretty close.

The fabric isn't authentic at all. I used a striped velveteen synthetic (it feels luxurious at least) and a heavy plum sateen (probably poly). I also didn't stick very closely to one part of the Victorian Era. The anachronisms aren't so strong that a casual observer would notice them.

Isa Cosplay

I started this costume a couple years ago, but didn't finish... until now!

Originally, a friend and I were going to dress up as Lea and Isa from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Unfortunately, we kept putting it off so long that we don't hang out anymore, so I got myself together and did the Isa costume alone.

I wore this to PAX East a couple weeks ago. Not many people knew who I was, but I pretty much expected that. This was also my first time styling a wig like this, and I am pretty happy with how it came out.

The costume consists of purchased white jeans, black shoes I painted with white soles, a purchased black t-shirt, and (the thing I actually made) a sweatshirt. I searched thrift stores for a sweater and shirt that were both that light blue color to use as trim on a sweatshirt I made from scratch. It has welt pockets, which are just crazy to do in sweatshirt fleece. The wig has almost a full can of hairspray in it... there's still hairspray on a bunch of my stuff (like my computer mouse).

Sorry I don't have any good full-length or construction photos.

I probably did nothing properly but here it is! The jacket is done!

First of all,  here are all the progress posts and a link to the original pattern for the Galliano Pirate Jacket. I pretty much abandoned any instructions and a lot of pattern pieces while making this, mostly because if I tried to take it too seriously I knew I would have never finished. Winging it has resulted in a finished jacket with a ton of imperfections, but hopefully no one will notice because they'll be too confused by the whole thing anyways.

As you can see, I went with straps and D-rings for closures. Like I considered in my last post, I also took apart the square end on the bottom, recut it, and added binding to make it match the rest of the jacket.

Here you can see the bottom of the back fits me pretty well, unlike when it sticks out on my dressform. 

The original jacket suggests two ways of closing it (with snaps in two different orientations). I wasn't really paying attention to this part when making it, but stumbled upon it while taking the photos, so here are the two ways mine closes - either matching up both side straps (all above photos) or attaching the bottom strap to the top set of D-rings and letting the extra straps hang (two photos below).

It fits my dressform a lot differently than my body, but it's easier to see where the straps all go, so here's that:

Finally, for my/your amusement, here's what it looks like flat... some sort of strange unrecognizable creature.

This might be the most vampire appropriate thing I own.

At least, I feel like a vampire would wear this... not one of these terrible new vampires, one of the bad-ass ones, to be clear.

The vest is black twill, many yards of twill tape, and a couple buckles and D-rings (ok, 16 D-rings). I kind of had a pattern, meaning I used a scan from gosurori vol. 3 (the vest/jacket shown on the cover) and a blouse pattern. I don't actually have the magazine, so I adapted a commercial blouse pattern... no mockup, just drew the shapes right on the fabric.

It's pretty hard to see the details since it's all black on black, so I'll try to explain. The points on the front, armholes, and bottoms of the tails are all bound with twill tape. The buckles along the spine are also twill tape but it had the buckles already attached. I bought this trim at one point because I thought it was cool, without a specific project in mind, so I'm glad I remembered it and could use it.

Oh man, this collar. I drew it mostly free-hand onto some paper using the picture/measurements in the magazine scan. I'm a little surprised it didn't cause me much trouble. It was originally too long for the neck opening in the vest, but I just cut the opening slightly larger and it works.

There's several different ways the straps on the front can be tied off (or not). They kind of give the vest a bit of a straight jacket vibe, which I am definitely a fan of.

Above, you can see the side straps (undone here). These help keep the back of the vest close to the body since it's weight is pretty unbalanced.

In case you're curious, this is what the tails look like flat. The scan had them even wider but I could only get this much width out of my piece of fabric.

Since the vest is unlined, I covered every seam that's visible while it's worn with twill tape (seen in the images above and below).

I'm pretty happy with how this all came out, especially considering I didn't really have a pattern and had a limited amount of fabric that was less than suggested by the magazine scan. There's some places where things don't quite line up (that's what I get for not planning where I'll put straps before sewing all the fabric pieces together). Still, it's one of those projects where I finish and think "holy hell I actually made this... how did I make this?"

Hey! Another Galliano pirate jacket update already!

Here are the previous posts about this project if you're just seeing it for the first time:
Pattern cutting
First update
... and here's what I have done. It's looking pretty close to actual clothing at this point!
(I tend to sew at night and snapped these photos quickly, so please excuse the quality)

As you can see, the biggest difference from last time is that I added twill tape binding along most of the edges. This bottom square edge... I don't know... I wanted to skip the binding so it echos the neck/shoulder edge, but it's doing a silly wiggling thing that I'm not pleased with. I think I will rip out the top-stitching on it, re-cut slightly, and bind it instead. Speaking of the binding, I realized while cleaning up some chalk marks that it's probably not color fast. Well damn. Guess I'm never washing this.

I've added a shoulder strap out of twill tape instead of the gathered strap that came with the pattern and elastic in the neckline edge that was gaping last time. I might still make the original strap and have it attach onto the twill tape. I thought adding the elastic might cause some weird pulling but it actually worked out pretty well.

You can kind of see the tab in the neckline with a strap angling downward. I really wanted this strap to go across my chest under the arm but angled it too much. I don't have the patience to re-do it, especially considering this white striped fabric is just shredding on the edges and there was already barely enough seam allowance there. I'll have to think of something to do with that strap.

I'm a little stuck on a closure for this thing. The original pattern uses snaps, but I am definitely not setting that many snaps by hand or getting a snap setter anytime soon, so that's out. I do have a large supply of D-rings and there's already twill tape straps on this thing, so I'm leaning towards that. The problem is where do I put them? The jacket doesn't fit on my body the same as a dress form, and holding it on while trying to figure out and mark where the straps/rings should go is not fun. I'll probably have to do it though, unless I come up with a better solution.

Wait, I actually worked on the Galliano jacket? Really?

Yea, I'm not sure what came over me here. Last night I was looking for some project, something I wouldn't have to think too much about because I wasn't feeling too well, and somehow I ended up working on the Galliano pirate jacket (pattern available here).

In case you're not familiar with this pattern, it's super crazy and has way too many pieces, and no instructions (not that I often follow instructions). I think I would have been less likely to work on it had it included instructions actually, mainly because at this point I'm not doing anything properly and just winging it. It's not going to really be the Galliano pirate jacket at the end, but hopefully it'll be some free-form wearable thing that I put a bunch of strange effort into.

My first post about this project is here. It's pretty much a quick blurb about cutting out the pattern. I did start the jacket back during the summer (May or June, something like that), and I thought I had posted about it but apparently not. Here's a photo from then for reference:

I'm using a solid red and a fine red/white stripe. The solid has stretch, which is not helpful at all in this case, and the stripe likes to shred where cut... also a fun time!

Back to the present: I pretty much stopped paying attention to how this jacket is supposed to work and am just making it work. Last night I cut out and pieced together a lining using white denim (yay no interfacing) and some of the red (yay interfacing). I've also attached the lining strategically and left other edges open (pinned in the photos). These will be bound with black twill tape. There will also be lots of twill tape straps and corresponding hardware probably... hopefully... someday...

Above is the lining side. Below you can see what it now looks like from the outside.

The most annoying part of this is the gaping at the upper back. This doesn't really go away no matter how I fiddle with the pieces. I'm thinking I'll add some elastic on that edge (to match the as-of-now non-existent gathered shoulder strap) but I don't know if that will look silly. Then again, this already looks ridiculous enough that it might not matter. Looking at the photos it's also gaping at the lower back, but I don't recall that being a big problem when I try the jacket on myself, so maybe it's just a dress-form issue.

Well there it is, relatively together! It'll probably sit around in a pile for a couple months again until a sudden bout of "what am I going to do tonight," but we'll see.