The cost of dressmaking

Last month I agreed to make a skirt for someone. I mean no disrespect to that person with this post, I'm just outlining my lessons learned.

I had said no to everyone up to this point, still not confident enough in my skills to make things for others (or cut up their fabric). But I figured it was time to give it a go, and settled on $50 to charge for the making of it. 
A local dress shop charges $290 for a similar skirt with this kind of fabric:

This person provided the fabric and chose a simple skirt from my existing patterns. We measured and decided on Size 18, as they wanted it to be a loose fit. 
No time limit was given.
First lesson: I still felt an obligation to have the skirt done within a couple of weeks. It ended up being longer because I got sick for almost two weeks. So when I did have time to sew, I felt like it was the priority.

When I took the fabric home I suddenly wondered: had it been washed? You should always wash before you sew, in case it runs or shrinks when it is eventually washed. 
It hadn't been.
Second lesson: I had to spend more time washing it, by hand, because it was expensive fabric.

It was an easy sew: there was more than enough fabric, that I cut conservatively because they wanted a shirt out of it as well in the future; the seams were easy; and the finishing hem and waistline were very simple. 
It took about 3 hours all up, including the fabric washing. 
At this point, 3 hours for $50 = $16.7/hour.

So I took it back to them to try on... and it was a full size too big.
Third lesson: If it was mine I would have just cut sections out, hem and waistband and all, and finished it somehow. But it wouldn't been the same, polished product that I had already produced. 
To make it look the same meant unpicking the hem and the waistband. I could have cut corners where at that point, while still making a solid garment, but it would take me at least another hour, probably more. 
Down to $12.50/hour. 

Luckily before I started unpicking, I decided to try some folds instead. It is a slightly different design, but still a nice skirt.
Conclusion
While it isn't all about the money, the average pay scale for sewing in Australia is $21/hour though, so perhaps I should think about what my time is worth for the next one.
But overall I think I was too hard on myself over the whole project- nothing went wrong with it and all the pressure over the timeline was self-induced. I do want to make beautiful things that other people will enjoy. 
I'll see how the next one goes!

Eco Dye Refashion: Acacia dye, simmering and cinerea

What better way to spend a day off this week than trying some new eco dye techniques? 
Go out the day before, collect leaves to print with.

Including some cycad leaves, to see if they had strong enough oils to print. We soaked overnight.

Rather than the usual gum leaf base dye, we tried Elephant Ear, Acacia dunnii. Both the leaves and the pods were boiled and the dye was a kind of purple/brown in the pot.

The round leaves are dried Silver Dollar Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus cinerea. They were pre-soaked in vinegar to try and revive them for dyeing. You usually get a strong, orange print from them. 
The top was silk.

Cotton.

A new technique we tried was rather than dipping the whole shirt in rust water, we used an 'iron blanket': a piece of fabric dipped into the rust water that was meant to help the leaves print. I believe you're meant to get clearer prints and less background colour.

I tried it on a couple of shirts.

Some bundles in the steamer.

Laying out a pattern on a blue silk top, to go in the simmering pot in plain water.

The Acacia dye pot all packed in.

This was a fancy layout with two different kinds of onion skins, gum leaves and cinerea.

Beautiful colours.

The Results

Not what was expected. Everything came out pale and with a lot of yellow - very different to my usual black and grey!

Some string marks, but not much of the grevillea or any other leaves that went in there. This was white to begin with, though. Very interesting that I usually get olive green colours from grevillea, but got yellow instead!

Yellow and black, yellow and black.

A bit of grevillea print showing through.

This one is a wash of pale browns and oranges.

But with the string marks still. It kind of looks like it was dyed in tea.

No coffee, dirt or otherwise was spilled on this... just plant dyes!

You can see the yellow grevillea prints.

This iron blanket picked up the spring pattern, but the shirt it was wrapped around didn't.

This red cotton had a few stains on it that aren't noticeable now.

I like how the lace I wrapped in the middle picked up the red as well as the grey and brown.

And the matching spring patterns on either side.

This is probably the best of them: onion skins on lime green silk.

Some interesting shades of colour in there.

And this little top has some interesting patterns down the middle.

As well as some nice colour around the top. 

Almost green/blue in there.

I may re-dye some, though I chance losing the water colour look then. They might look nice with some stencils instead. Something to contemplate this weekend!

#lovelypennypatterns

Robin Hood Cosplay: A Merry Man and Woman

My archery club have a traditional shoot each year where they have a recurve/longbow competition, hieing back to older times. As part of it this year people are invited to dress up in traditional archers garb, from whatever era or mythical land they choose. One of my favourite movies is the Robin Hood with Errol Flyn in the title role: so Merry Men and Women it is.

Over Shirt

I started with one for a friend as a test. I used an existing pattern and cut a rough top out. I didn't want the additional seams, so I didn't do four pieces, just two. Back panel:

Front panels:

All of the edges were overlocked, which they certainly wouldn't have done in Robin Hood's time!
I cheated for the castle cut-out pieces: instead of having to sew all those extra seams to make the shapes, I cut them out of t-shirt fabric. No hemming necessary!

The sleeves went on perfectly!

Once I was sure that this method was going to work, I moved on to my own costume.

My Over Shirt

I cut my outfit out of hot pink, because why not?

I used some t-shirt yarn that I had made to create the lacings for the front once it was all sewn together.

And I had an old singlet with interesting front detail that I cut in two to use as the sleeves and for the decorative bit on the bottom.

I went with the blue contrast to match the hat I had already made.

Some fake leather for the lacings and I was done! I had picked up a white shirt at an op shop to use for dyeing, so I rescued it for this project. Without it I just looked like I was wearing a dress!

Very happy with how it turned out 😊

Husband's Over Shirt

I used an existing shirt for my husband's costume, as I've had trouble in the past where the shirts that I've tried to make him don't fit across the shoulders. Need to work that out some time.
I cut the long sleeves off the shirt and removed the buttons down the front. 

I cut the sleeves off an existing t-shirt again, and cut the decorative cut outs.

Sewed them in.

I left the pocket on because it was going to be a pain to unpick, and it usually leaves a hole.

I cut the collar off, turned what was left under and sewed it down to create a different neckline.

Sewed the decorative bottom on as well.

I went with green t-shirt yarn for the lacings. I forgot to take a photo, but I had sewn extra button holes in the match the existing ones for the lacing. Below that I used a piece of one of the sleeves I had cut off to make the shirt a bit looser and to close the front.

Happy, merry husband! 

And a photo from the day:

#lovelypennypatterns