SDP031: Evaluation

I discovered whilst filling out the unit evaluation form on Thursday 12^th May that I have genuinely thoroughly enjoyed this unit. I believe it to be the unit that I have most enjoyed in my degree thus far. I have never worked so hard, or have been more dedicated to a topic than I have with this one and for that I am extremely proud of myself. Personally and professionally, I feel I have come a long way and have learnt an awful lot about myself.

I have been interested in tailoring since I took a level 3 diploma in Production Tailoring in sixth form and with a natural ability and urge to do things neat and accurate, it has always appealed to my inner perfectionist so when this project came up I thought that it was perfect. Having worked on it, it has challenged me in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined and also in ways that I had. Having never made a men’s suit before, I didn’t really have any clue as to what I was really letting myself in for but I loved every minute of it. I’ve learnt so many things to carry through to level 6, including skills in tailoring, general making and personal feats.

Though I have worked solidly, all day every day I have still managed not to work as fast as I had hoped and have managed to be quite slow in my construction. I can only assume that this is because I have never worked with checks before so have spent a number of hours at various stages that the checks will match up and if they don’t then going back to make sure that they do. This lack of time has unfortunately made me rush other areas such as the pockets on the waistcoat which I feel I could have done a lot better. I have learnt in this sense to trust your gut feeling and take your time instead of worrying bout other people around you are doing. One of the main personal mile stones that I will be sure to take with me to level 6 is to not care as much about other people. Though it seems like a selfish move, I have found myself worrying that I was much behind the other two girls in my project instead of just keeping my head down and carrying on with my work. Not only did this sometimes upset me, but it frustrated me more and made me wonder why I was so behind. By eliminating this inner competition that I make up in my head, I will be able to concentrate fully on my own work and present it to an eve higher standard than before.

As far as the actual learning goes, I have learnt so much from Graham this term and what I have learnt will affect the way I work within theatrical costume as well as tailoring. Tailoring requires a high standard of accuracy and neat working in order to create the sharp shapes that a good tailored suit has. By learning this standard, I can now transfer this standard into the work of my other costumes outside of tailoring and bring them to an even higher standard than before. This will help me in my EMP when it comes to really showcasing what I can do. My pattern cutting has definitely improved within this unit as I have learnt to stand at all times in order to look at it from above. This can help it become even more accurate than before as you eliminate the angle you create from sitting down at the table.

Finally, I have improved professionally in a way I couldn’t have achieved if this had not been a project based outside of University. I have been in a situation where I have had to think about and improve the way that I look to potential employers. I have had to deal with a fitting on my own for which I thought I coped quite well, and had to present myself to an actor that I haven’t seen wondering around University on a day-to-day basis or one that I can easily talk to on Facebook. Being able to have that experience really helped me prepare for the world to come after graduation and has also made me appreciate how well organised the fittings at AUCB are. I will also take these skills into level 6 when I have to organise my own fittings.

SDP030: Week Nine

As we got given an extension, I have had a few more extra days to allow myself to try and catch up a little to where Anushka and Mary are, though I know that I will never fully catch up as I do not wish to rush. This is just something that I hope to learn in time.

SDP029: Reflection on the Jacket

I have learnt more things than ever with the jacket of this project. There have been many a technique that I will need to write up as soon as I have relaxed after this hand in. And these are things that I will need to help me within EMP as I plan on making a tailored garment of some sort. I fully intend on making a tailored jacket in order to really practice my skills in this area.

I have by far found the jacket the hardest part of the project which is unsurprising but I have enjoyed every day of learning it and will continue to enjoy this work until the jacket is finished. I gain much personal and professional satisfaction from my own work and I feel I will gain greatly from this project alone.

SDP028: More Instruction and Personal Reflection

On Monday, we had a short tutorial with Graham in the morning about the sleeve and how we are to go about constructing them. I fear I will have to literally go straight back to the drawing board in order to complete this sleeve and I have now come to terms with the fact that I will not even be able to start this before hand in. Though, of course I am disappointed that I had not been able to work fast enough to get this far, I have finally come to a realization as to why I have been quite so slow in this unit.

I have never worked with checks before and not only did the suit material I got given have a check in it, but it was a very faint check that was hard to see in the right light. Adding this to my habits as a perfectionist and I have spent hours upon hours matching up the checks at various stages and checking that it all matched. Given time and practice, I will only get better at this but this is something that I will need the patience to do. 

SDP027: Week Eight

As Ase hasn't sent us the buttons yet, Graham has told us that we aren't to worry about buttonholes and buttons for the hand in. Consequently, we also found out this week that the whole year has a two day extension until Wednesday 18th May. I am glad that we have this extension as I really need the extra time to get further with my work however, I am becoming increasingly exhausted from working so hard on this project that I was quite looking forward to the stress going on the Monday!

SDP026: Waistcoat

Yesterday, I managed to complete my second ever waistcoat. I am pleased with the overall completion though I think I could have done some things better. Having said this, I need to remember that this is only my second ever tailored waistcoat, and my first ever double breasted one. Unlike the one in DP, this waistcoat had four pockets which I feel I maybe rushed a little in order to complete them within a day but I am generally happy with the outcome.

One major hindrance I had was that I accidentally cut too far on both sides of the waistcoats inside at the side seams which caused fraying with the lining. I hesitated in how to rectify this mistake and chose to try and hand sew the fray so that it was neater. Though I think I did achieve this, I still feel that it could have been avoided altogether had I kept my wits about me when I was on the final leg of the construction.

I am pleased with the overall look of the waistcoat and especially the collar and the matching up of checks considering I have never worked with checks before.

SDP025: Jacket Construction

Having finished my trousers, and working on my waistcoat at home, it was finally time for me to start construction on my jacket. This started with marking in changes from the fitting to my pattern pieces and then sewing in the darts and beginning my jetted pockets.

Matching these pockets was a challenging task given the flap I had to engineer into the top jet  and the impossibility it created with matching up the top jet to both the flap and the bottom jet of the pocket. I enjoyed the feeling of success it gave as I finished each pocket but both pockets are far from pointless. I think that I could have done these pockets a bit better but starting to think about time again, I feared spending too much time on them.

I found this week that pad-stitching (especially on the lapels) took a long time to complete. It was hard to completely know how correctly I was completing the work given I hadn't done such a thing before but in the end I was really happy with the lapels that I had created!

SDP024: Week Seven

Further still, my timetable is wrong. I have recently learnt that collars will not be put in until after hand in, sleeves may not either depending on time and personal time management and the lining will be partially done. This week however, I managed to complete my trousers and also start my waistcoat by completing the pockets. I was not able to get too far with this tailoring work as I had my POP essay to finish for the 9th May.

SDP023: Reflection on 5th May

Today was a massive learning curve for me as a maker. In the previous post I mentioned that I consider myself a fast maker. I've always been one of the fastest in any group I've been put into and so this adds to my ever growing frustration that I am becoming further and further behind in my work than I had planned to be. Being a perfectionist in this position doesn't help as I know that I could catch up easily if I throw my professional outlook out the window and give less than 110% percent, but I can't allow myself to do this.

In a way, I think that it is good for me to be behind (though, I fail to see this side right now) as I know that I will never get everything done precisely when I want to or when I need to. Certain things will happen that will delay projects and I need to learn that these things will happen. I am also learning that when these things happen, I can't loose sight of what I still need to achieve by worrying. In this unit already, I have personally learnt to stop worrying and get on with the work at hand.

I have discovered that I need to learn to stop comparing myself to others when it comes to speed of working. I have found myself envious of Anushka and Mary and how far ahead they are which again wastes time that I don't have. I need to learn to be more selfish with my thoughts in some ways and stop thinking about other people's work so much. This would save me a lot of time in itself.

SDP022: Further Instructions.

Today was a particularly bad day for me. I am usually a fairly fast and reliable worker but I find that I am working exceedingly slow on this project. I cannot work out why I am working so slow in everything I am doing but it is frustrating me which in turn makes me want to rush but the perfectionist in me won't allow this. I am still, without a doubt, enjoying everything I am doing, it is just the lack of speed at this time that I am getting annoyed at. However, after a talk with Graham today, I am told not to rush but to carry on and not worry about anything at all.

Another reason why this was a tough day was the shear amount of information thrown at me in today's session. Together with Anushka and Mary we found out about the trouser waistband from a third year as well as Graham teaching us the tricks of hemming a curved hem on a trouser leg and a neat way of securing trouser hooks onto the waistband without the hooks slipping forward. On top of this, he taught us pad-stitching for the canvas and lapel and we also started a jetted pocket sample.

You can see now why I started to burst at the seams with knowledge and emotion. I have a lot to catch up on and I don't think that I will catch back up to Anushka and Mary at this time. But I need to learn not to compare myself to others.

SDP021: Week Six

Due to my lack of knowledge about tailoring when I created this timetable, from here on I feel that I will have greatly overestimated where I would be at this time of the project. Although I have done some pockets this week and also a seam or two, I have not applied (or am near a stage where I would be applying) canvas or even cutting out facings.

It is only due to this experience that I am going to say that from here on out, my initial timetable will be completely wrong and I will have to completely rethink it week by week...

SDP020: Trousers

On the first week back from Easter, fresh from our fitting, it was time to start planning how we were going to construct our suit in the three weeks left before the deadline on the 16th May... only a mere two weeks away from this moment in time! We all had a meeting with Graham where he explained which bits needed to be done and when and they we were left to our own devices, only asking for help when we really needed it.

The trousers were the first and easiest thing to be done on the list so it made sense to make them to get them out of the way for other time consuming things, mainly the entire jacket! At times, there was nothing we could do apart from ask for Graham's help as we all needed to do side pockets for the trousers which personally I had never done and for which there were no instructions for... After a quick demonstration, we were once again on our own.

Following instructions on a hand out, I got along with the trousers well. I had no major problems and learnt how to achieve a button fly all by myself. This is one of my greatest moments to date on this project. I am really proud of the work I achieved on the trousers so far and didn't find the work particularly grueling on the mind but rather enjoyed it. However, I have read through the waistband part of the hand out and feel that there is nowhere near enough instruction to complete this by myself so will ask one of the third years tomorrow for help (as Graham previously advised).

SDP019: Reflection on fitting.

This was my first fitting ever without a tutor with me at the time and although we still had Ase to guide us, we were pretty much on our own. I found it was very useful to have Mary and Anuska with me as I did this fitting to assure me that I was going the right way and doing the right things. I learnt that it is never a bad thing to have a list of things to check when at a fitting. Eventually I will learn and be practiced in all that I have to look at during a fitting but certainly at this time of my degree, I still have a lot to learn in this area.

Coming away from this fitting, I am a lot more confident about conducting a fitting of my own without a tutor. This also allows me to build confidence to start making garments for people of my own accord and not just for Uni... I may even make my brother a suit (or part of one) this summer.

Again, I have also learnt how to deal with something outside of the Uni environment. Though, the basis of the fitting was the same, it was slightly less formal and relaxed as I suppose all parties involved knew what their role was in the proceedings. I experienced the same feeling whilst viewing a fitting at Les Mis on work experience. It has taught me that fittings are not meant to be, nor are they in any way daunting!

SDP018: The Fitting!

Yesterday, we finally managed to have our fitting! Overall, I am really quite pleased with how it went. I only had a few things to change and these were agreed with both my fellow tailors and also with Ase. Even though the fitting is complete now, I now cannot do anything more to the suit until I have a lining fabric or until I get a chance to see Graham at the beginning of next term... which ever comes sooner!

Though I have many more pictures, I have chosen these to highlight the overall silhouette of the suit from the fitting and the fit of the waistcoat. I initially thought that the waistcoat may come up a bit snug as this is what happened to my DP waistcoat, but it actually fit really well and like it was supposed to! This leads me to assume that my client for DP gained a little weight as I made his waistcoat! 

Things I have to change include making the waistcoat armhole less angular to the body, changing the slight shape of the jacket armhole and making the trousers bigger around the bottom. This is most likely to do with the fact that my original actor was AWOL for my fitting and I therefore had to have a replacement. This replacement actor, George, was very willing to help and was helpful as he vocalized any discomforts he found with the suit (which happily, were minimal)  .

SDP017: Week Five

Based on the fact that I started this week ahead of what I'd planned, I have managed to keep up once more with the initial timetable and even race forward to constructing my suit ready for a fitting. Though we had hoped on maybe having a fitting this Friday just gone, it was not meant to be. ArtsEd were on Easter at this time, but we hope to have a fitting later this holiday as without the fitting, I am currently stuck with nothing to do but wait....

Here is my revised timetable for this week.