Thorin Tunic - Post 1

Okay, so I skipped a day. Got busy, which tends to happen to me a lot. It's a terrible thing. Trust me. Despite missing a day on my blog, though, I wasn't completely idle in the crafting department. I was actually doing a lot of hand sewing yesterday on my Thorin tunic (the bottom layer of my "Prince Thorin" costume, which is going to be epic). I made a lot of progress whilst in the waiting room at the doctor's, as well as in the car while my mom was driving. I was totally planning to come home after my appointment and be all productive, but then, Goodwill happened, and two hours later, my mom had bought herself a bunch of colorful shirts. I think it was an impulse buy, personally, but I'm glad she enjoyed herself.

I'm really off topic, aren't I? Sad. Well, to get this crafting train back on track, I'll say that this post is meant to detail some of my progress in making Thorin's shirt, not all of which has been documented, as the advent of this blog was sometime after I'd begun the shirt. Oh well. The first part's fairly basic anyway.

So, to throw you right into the thick of things, I'll start with the collar. Thorin's shirt (much to my sadness) does not have an awesome hood like Fili's and Kili's. Evidently, the one he uses is on his coat or something. This picture illustrates my collar pattern, which was mostly stolen from a Simplicity pattern I've had since high school. (I don't expect you to know how long ago that was. I'll just be vague like Edward and say it's been "a while.") 

The pattern, in case you're wondering, is Simplicity 4942, and is basically a generic Théoden, Legolas, and Elrond pattern. I'm sure there are dozens more that would work, but this one is perfectly sufficient to use as a base pattern. Base patterns are incredibly helpful when you're trying to achieve a particular original design, but don't want to start from scratch. You modify beforehand, using a mockup, or if you're impatient (like me), you modify as you go, to mixed results. (I'm getting better about that, I swear. I'm trying to be more professional.)

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Making a collar.

I cut two of the collar from my linen fabric, and one out of fusible interfacing. Fusible interfacing stiffens the collar and will make it stand up like it's supposed to. It's great for cuffs, as well, which I'll also be making for this shirt. 

So here you can see one of the fabric pieces being laid over the interfacing. Placing a damp rag over the fabric, once it's where I want it, I fuse the interfacing in place with my iron. Then it's time to sew the interfacing fabric piece to the non-interfacing'd fabric piece, the bottom 1/4" or so I've ironed up so once I've sewn my seam, I can hand slip stitch the facing in place. Sounds complicated, I know, but it really isn't. 

Once I've sewn around the top, rounded part (I altered the shape a little bit from the original pattern to make it less rounded, because Thorin's collar is more squared off at the edges), I can turn it and press.

Now it looks like this. Totally epic, right? I don't have pictures of the process of attaching it to the shirt because I did it in a rush before work, but it's really straightforward. You just pin the longer side (the one where the white is showing) to the back of the neckline on the shirt and sew about a quarter-inch seam (technically, you're supposed to sew 5/8" seams, but I usually don't when I'm drafting my own patterns. Anyway, it's an easy thing to fix if it ends up being too big. Not so much if it ends up being too small.

So Thorin has über awesome shoulder pads on his shirt. We're not talking 80's dress suits here, people. These shoulder pads have a purpose. They're meant to keep weapons straps from making your shoulders sore over time. (I wish I'd had this shirt when I was still playing bass in my brother's band, lemme tell ya.) The process of making them was a whole different story, what with making a weird sandwich with the fabric on the outside and cotton batting on the inside, then drawing the lines, then quilting them with my machine. I then sewed along the existing outside lines to attach the shoulder pads to the shirt. And they look... sexy? 

Notice all the cool lines along the front of the shirt. I've seen people actually cutting the fabric and then piecing it back together to achieve this look... *shakes head* You poor, poor people. So much easier to just mark, press, and sew a tiny seam right in the existing fabric piece. Same, exact look (if not better), and it's soooo much easier. Also sturdier construction, so you don't have to lie awake at night fretting that your seams are going to come apart and you're going to have a wardrobe malfunction and everyone's going to get an eyeful. 

So my next task was to make a binding for the front edge of the tunic, and a fabric lacing to go through the eyelets. A few days before, I'd found this cheesy, plastic strip cutter at a thrift store (I get so much whacky stuff at thrift stores), and I decided I'd put it through its paces. It actually... worked. Using fabric leftovers, I managed to cut a huge pile of 1 1/4" wide strips, which I then attached together in ingenious ways to make a binding/facing for my tunic front, as well as enough to make a lacing. A bunch of cutting, sewing, pressing, pinning, and sewing later, this was the result:

It looketh so prettyful. I was quite pleased with myself as I collapsed on my bed that night. After a lot of hand sewing the next day (mainly the front facing and the inside of the collar), as well as (today) finishing the lacing, this is where I'm at now (ignore the lacing; I've just draped it over the front, and it's not attached):

All that remains to be done now are the sleeves, the side seams, the back hem, and the eyelets. Oh, and I have to dye it a darker color. Wow. I had no idea I was actually that close to being done. That's amazing. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have time to make more progress. If not, I'll cheat and make a blog about something else. Because Mahal knows, I'm always working on something, and get distracted ridiculously easily. I'm the most ADD crafter in the world. It's a wonder I ever finish any of my projects. *sigh*