We are almost finished with our costume workshop! Our first week we put together a simple hat with ears and whiskers. Then, we prepared our jumpsuit-style pattern and cut and marked our fabrics. Then we joined our shell, including our pockets. Last entry we joined the lining and prepared our neckline and front placket.
Today? We are finishing and joining the costume. Our final post will be a little costume/tutorial workshop roundup, consisting of some helpful costuming resources (and please email me if there are any you’d like to share)!
Ready? OK!
So, there are many ways to complete our sleeve and leg hems and a lot depends on whether you have any facings at the hem (like this). Recall that, in the case of long pile faux fur, facings here would be extra bulky, so they are omitted. Faux fur also doesn’t hem well by stitching the right-sides of the lining and shell hems together as I’ve done for many a lined costume – you run the risk of trapping the faux fur in the hem. NO ONE WILL NOTICE OR CARE, except for the anal retentive stitcher making the costume (!hello!) – but I think I have a better and easier way of getting around these hem issues:
Generally, I turn up the hem allowances at sleeve and leg hem, and (carefully!) glue-gun them. This is trickier than it sounds, as you want to avoid two things:
1. scalding yourself with your hot glue which is the heat of a thousand suns
2. ending up with a rigid “blob” of dried glue
Now, I have ended up with a “blob” or two and it’s not a big deal. Worst case scenario, the blob has a sharp corner and somehow rubs through your lining (that’s never happened to me, ever, though). What you are going for here is a very thin ribbon of glue, in the pocket between our marked hem fold line, and the folded edge of the costume:
(ahhh look at my soft pink skin so close to the molten lava that is glue gun glue!)
Be patient, take your time, and finish all four hems (leg and sleeve) – set the costume aside to cool.
Next up – we can install our little neckline. I’ll be sewing with the neckline strip (wrong-sides together) pinned to the top of the neckline of the shell. I want the curved, finished short edges to fall just outside the seam allowance raw edge (second picture below):
Voila!
Now, it’s time to sew the snap/button placket in. One thing I love about making a wide placket is, if I want to narrow it, I simply pin accordingly:
After stitching (the placket should run from the join notch up to just outside the seam allowance at the raw edge of the neckline) I then trim the placket to 1/4″ from the seamline:
Looking good!
Next, we’re going to turn both the shell and the finished lining inside out, and pin along the neckline and the placket opening. We’re going to leave about three inches open at the juncture near the crotch.
Okay, so this is one of my favorite things about lined garments. At this stage, everything looks kind of terrible. But we’re only one stitched, pressed, and graded seam from turning the costume right-side out and stitching just a few stitches to completion!
Show below: I double-pin right at the start and end point of this seam, so I know where to stop. Make sure to firmly backstitch here.
Sewing along that neckline, where we’d installed our little neckline edging:
Here is the “corner – turning from the neckline to the front placket. You can see we like a firm stitch here – then trimming and grading the seam> Be patient and grade carefully. This is our last machined stitchwork!
Shown here – after turning the costume right-side out, we have these little lengths to handstitch at the crotch. This is why we marked the seam allowance in the lining front edges – to know where to turn and stitch:
Go ahead and firmly reinforce by hand. I haven’t had a costume crotch blow out yet, but that area undergoes some strain while wearing.
So finally – we need to hand-affix the lining to the sleeve and leg hems.
Below you see the folded lining edge at bottom, and the raw seam allowance of the glued hem, right next to it. I am going to be grabbig just little bites of thread from the folded lining edge and the raw shell. The sturdiness of the faux fur is wonderful, here:
And here’s the finished lining stitchwork!
Set your snaps (photo pending) – and you’re all finished!
We are all done! You’ve completed a lined, awesome costume! And now when someone gushes over how awesome your costume is, you can say –
“Thanks. I MADE IT.”
We have one more post to go for this costume workshop! In the meantime if you have any questions at all – comment here, email, or find me on Facebook!