Jesus Costume McCall's 2060

It is finished. (Pun intended.)

Phew! I made the vest (view D) which is terribly simple, but with some complicating changes. First off, the vest needed to be reversible. One side is out prior to Jesus' death and the other side is out after Jesus' resurrection. Secondly, the main side needed to be a patchwork of four colours: green, brown, white, and gold. These colours are represented by other groups in the cast. Thirdly, the gold that was chosen was a tissue lame'. (Pardon me there, I don't know how to add an accent mark in blogger.)

Making the vest reversible meant that I could eliminate facings, which, in my mind is a bit easier as I would not have to hand-tack down facings. Of course, I forgot that on something this big, a lining is a lot of fabric and a lot of machine stitching to deal with.

But it was the patchwork on the main side that really stuck it to me. I had asked the director to sketch something up for me, but she didn't, so I made a few sketches myself. She chose the design with all of the arcs.


Now that it's done, I am very glad she didn't pick the stained glass window inspired sketch.

To go about making the arced patchwork pattern, I first adjusted the muslin and then used it to cut out the lining pieces. Then I took the lining pieces, pinned them to large sheets of easel paper and traced around them.


Back piece pinned, ready to trace.

Then I measured off the seam and hem allowances and drew the patchwork design onto the paper. I made registration marks to make matching up the cut pieces easier and then cut the patchwork pieces apart.


Front piece, ready to cut apart.

After I decided which pieces would be in which fabrics, I traced around the outside of each piece (adding back the seam and hem allowances that I had previously removed), cut them out and laid them out to see how they looked.


Pieces laid out.

I really liked how one of the sides looked, but not the other, so I played around with it a bit, made a decision and then cut a few new pieces.


Playing around prior to cutting out new pieces.

Each piece had to be sewn together to assemble each front and the back. Then construction went along pretty much as usual.

The tissue lame' proved to be quite tricky to work with as it is sheer and, well, rather like working with flexible tinfoil. I decided to underline it with flannel. This, I think was a mistake. I should have gone for a thinner broadcloth. But, as I have been reminding myself all day, this is a costume not a real garment.


I used the triple-stitch zigzag to attach the tissue lame' to the flannel underlining.

Oh well. The vest is done. Here David is modeling it before I finished the side seams. The actor playing Jesus is a fair bit taller and broader in the shoulders than my dear husband.


Front.


Back.

Comments

Jean said…
I love how you played with the colors --- cool costume!

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