Cape |

You know you had a good time at an event when you literally take zero photos! Last weekend was my third time attending the ball (I missed it last year because I had 2 weddings and it felt like a bridge too far to also go to the ball!). You can see my previous outfits, from 2017 and 2019 here.

I did, however, take some photos of my outfit before I went. I went for a different vibe this year and made a suit with a cape, inspired by this outfit worn by Billy Porter, which I saw at an exhibition last year.

Obviously the embroidery was outside of my skills and time frame so I decided to get a brocade to kind of the same vibe. I also wanted to make a kind of see-through shirt, but decided against that because of modesty (and also time, again – I left starting the whole thing too late to be fiddling with difficult fabrics!

This is my whole outfit! I’m pretty please with how it all turned out.

The shirt is a classic Archer shirt. I’ve made this pattern so many times, it seemed an obvious choice. I made my standard size with no fitting adjustments, though I didn’t include any pockets. The fabric was not ideal for a shirt – it’s a crepe, so the shirt is quite bouncey and doesn’t press well. I chose it mostly because of the colour match with the brocade. Basically all the fabric is synthetic which is not what I usually want to do, but I had limited options and not much time left.

I’m not sure why, but the sleeves on the shirt were a bit long. Maybe the fabric just got kinda stretched out a bit. All the fabric except the brocade was from Masons in Abingdon by the way. They have a pretty big selection, but if you’re looking for very specific colours, as I was, then your options are limited.

The trousers are made from the brocade, obvs. The brocade was from Anglian Fashion Fabrics in Norwich – I saw it in person in July and regret not buying it at the time. I wanted to shop around for different options, but couldn’t find anything I liked more. Their delivery is not ideal and their customer service leaves a lot to be desired so I can’t honestly recommend them sadly.

The pattern I used for the trousers was Butterick B6878, which I used for my backless linen suit too. I don’t use big 4 patterns very often and always forget how minimal the instructions are! I also decided to leave the welt pockets off the back for time and the fabric pressed okay but not great (because it’s synthetic) so I thought trying to get welt pockets crisp would be tricky.

I made the size 10 and did have to take it in a bit on the back and side seams. I initially over-fitted it – I made the classic mistake of fitting it without the waistband, then added the waistband and it was too tight. I let the seams out again and cut a new waistband and they ended up really comfortable. I hemmed them considerably shorter than the pattern calls for as they were way too long.

Quite late on I had an inspired idea to make a bow tie! There are a bunch of free patterns and I kind of combined both. There are some that are adjustable but I didn’t have the hardware I needed so I made it a fixed size. I also had to watch a few youtube videos to learn how to tie it, lol.

The jacket pattern I used was the Nina Lee Richmond blazer. I’ve made it once before. I made the size 8 both times, but I kind of knew it was a bit snug – but I was too lazy to reprint and reassemble it. The previous version never had a button so it didn’t matter that it was a bit snug over my hips. I made the jacket with no adjustments to begin with. Then after it was all finished, I unpicked the hem and let out the side and back seams out to 0.5cm instead of the standard 1.5cm from the waist downwards. This was enough to make it fit nicely around my hips!

You can kind of see from these photos that the fabric is not the nicest to press. I tried to press it nicely but synthetic fabrics, of course, don’t really hold a press. I top-stitched the whole front edge of the lapels so it would sit nicely.

I do really like the fit I achieved on the jacket (and trousers) and any outfit that has 4 pockets has got to be good – I didn’t need to take a bag, I could fit everything I needed in my pockets. I do really like the pockets on the Richmond blazer, and the instructions are really clear and easy to follow. The photographer at the ball asked if they were functional and I was like ‘of course!’. I guess she didn’t know how much sewists love a pocket!

And of course, the finishing item of the ensemble was the cape. I was worried I would feel too stupid to wear the cape, but it’s really fun to swish around in a cape! I used Simplicity 8721, which is like a costume cape pattern (which is kind of all you can get). I made it without the hood and lined it, to give the same surprise colour as the one Billy Porter wore.

It’s quite hard to capture the movement of the cape in photos. The 2 fabrics were really light weight, which was what I wanted to make sure it would have some movement.

I do love the bright pink lining – and the shoes were a flukey colour match since i ordered them online!

I really enjoyed making all of the items I wore – and I did have enough time to finish everything, not helped by the delayed fabric delivery though.

I went to the brunch the morning after the event and everyone was saying ‘so are you going next year?’ and I had so recently finished my outfit I couldn’t think of anything I would want to make/wear. But I have since had an idea so who knows…. And I would have almost a whole year to make my outfit (though I’m sure we all know I would still leave it to the last minute!).

It was really nice to meet so many new people – the sewing community is great that you can go to an event without knowing anyone and you can make friends by the end of the evening!

I’ve got a mostly successful refashion to share with you today. You may or may not remember this skirt which I bought from a now defunct charity shop in Islington. I bought 4 things at the same time and have refashioned the other 3 already (I made a skirt into a Scout Tee, an ugly dress into a less ugly dress and an ugly coat into a Freemantle coat), so it felt overdue to give this one a new life.

I ummed and ahhed about what to make and, having rejected making a different kind of skirt, had the brainwave to make a cape! I’m not really sure where the idea came from or how much wear I’ll get from it, but I had fun making it.

The first thing I did was to unpick the whole skirt – I removed the zip, which was broken anyway,

unpicked all these deep pleats, and separated the lining from the main fabric.

When it was all unpicked, it turned out there was loads of fabric! I couldn’t even get it all in one photo!

I separated the 2 halves of the skirt – where you can see it’s slightly shaped in the above photo and used one half to make the main, back part of the cape. This would have been a lot easier with a dress form, but given I don’t have one yet, I improvised. I pinned the half of the skirt to the shoulders of my cardigan, so they sat where I wanted the shoulder seams to be on the cape. I then took the cardigan off, with the fabric attached.

I used the cardigan method to tell me how much of the fabric to gather across my back. It turned out I had to gather pretty much the whole width as much as it would gather, considering it is quite think wool fabric. I then used the original waistband to make half a collar, which also secured the gathers.

The next thing I did was to use the other half of the skirt to cut the front pieces for each side. Given that the skirt was slightly shaped at the hips, I used this shaping as a guide to follow my shoulders. I attached these 2 pieces to each side of the back, leaving a gap about 25 cm up and of about 25 cm for the arm holes. I then tried it on and adjusted the seam to better fit the curve of my shoulders, trimming away the excess seam allowance.

Since I was making this all up as I went along, I realised the waist band part would make a great stand-up collar – when I first attached it I wasn’t sure if it would be more of a yolk, but collar it was. I therefore applied interfacing to stiffen it a bit. I used some remnants of some white interfacing I had because it’s a thicker, more papery weight than the black interfacing I have in my stash.

The cape was all going swimmingly up to this point. I decided to use the original lining from the skirt as the lining for the cape – this turned out to be an error, but I’ll explain why later.

I had kept the lining in one piece and lined the centre seam up with the centre of the cape back. I cut 2 facing pieces from what was left of the skirt fabric and when I lined it all up with the collar of the shell, the lining really overlapped at the top of the facing and there was a big gap at the bottom, so I trimmed off the overlap at the top and sewed a triangular wedge onto the bottom – you can see my rough chalk marks where I measured it and the wedge pinned on below.

I also added a couple of darts into the lining so it would better follow the shape of my shoulders – and the shape of the shell. I ended up unpicking these later, however.

The problem was that the lining was much smaller than the shell – the lining of the skirt was as big as the outer fabric once the pleats were all pleated already, so it makes sense there wasn’t as much lining fabric. With jackets and things, ideally the lining should be a little bigger than the shell (and often with a pleat at centre back) to allow for movement. I only discovered my mistake once I’d pretty much finished the cape and then tried it on. It didn’t sit properly over my shoulders as there wasn’t as much room in the lining as in the shell, and the armholes proved very difficult to neated – the lining fabric pulled up the hem (which I had already sewn, another mistake!) when I pinned it to the shell armhole, if that makes sense? The only work-around I could come up with was to add an extra triangle of fabric above the shell armhole in the lining, so the lining would more accurately match the shape of the shell.

This did pretty much work, even if it may not look the neatest on the inside.

After all the drama of the lining, I cut another strip the same size as the waist-band collar to sew to the inside of the collar, neatening the attachment of the lining at the neck.

It doesn’t look too shabby on the inside, if I do say so myself!

Now I’m just going to spam you with pictures of the finished cape – I used a couple of toggles from my stash (which were a present from my awesome friend!) to fasten the neck. I had thought it would meet more in the middle than it does, but I blame the lining! I blame the lining for all it’s ills.

I love the cocoon-y shape it makes from the side!

Showing off the bastard lining, and trying to look pleased with it……

I had to do a superhero pose – sorry not sorry. I don’t know what superhero I’d be – Tartan Girl? Refashion Woman? Any better suggestions?

Although I have moaned a lot about the problems with this cape, it only took really a day and a bit to make (spread over 3 days) and I have never made a cape before from a proper pattern and aside from some random googling, I didn’t really know what one looked like, so I’m pretty pleased I’ve ended up with a wearable garment. I was listening to a podcast while I was sewing with the lady who runs Workroom Social in Brooklyn and she said she tries to teach her students not to necessarily unpick every little mistake they make and instead to look for ways around the problem, hoping you would learn from the mistake and mistake-solving next time. There’s often a lot of pressure in sewing to produce something ‘perfect’ but I know I’m not quite that good yet, so this cape is definitely good enough. Do you unpick all your mistakes or do you soldier on through?