So that Ada Lovelace dress I was working on for Halloween. Given that I am currently finishing up wedding planning (3 weeks left!) and taking a real sewing class (details below!), the only way to finish in time would be to work every spare moment on it, and that would stress me out. And I don’t feel like being stressed out. So, costume is temporarily on hold. I do hope to make it one day, and convince the Computer History Museum which is 10 minutes away to let me take some pictures with their difference engine. We shall see.

Seriously, I finished the corset 2 weeks ago, and I haven’t even put the laces on to try it on. Hopefully I’ll get to that soon to see if it fits, and write a review of the pattern.

In the meantime, I’m going to gush a bit about the sewing class. I found out that there is a community college near me which offers degrees in fashion. I’m not going for a degree, but I can take classes at night for fun!

So, this semester I am taking Pants Drafting. Basically about as opposite of historical costuming as you can get!

Pants alterations are basically the most unintuitive thing ever. It really takes wizardry. Most of this is due to have two intersecting curves (crotch curve and inseam), and trying to alter one without changing the other. I could post about what we learned, but I’m going to continue this lazy trend and link you to another blogger who took the same class and posted already.

I realize this is fairly obvious, but it’s pretty amazing being able to take a real class from a real teacher, instead of teaching myself from the internet.

We all drafted patterns to our measurements, and WOW none of them were even close to fitting. But, if I had done this on my own, I probably would have called the pattern “good enough” and made it up. I can’t wait until I can take a similar class for tops/bodices, because it’s going to improve my bodice fitting So So much.

I’ve bought some soft gray and pink plaid flannel to make the pants for the final assignment. And lol that will be hilarious, because I’ve never made pants before (need to figure out how to do a pants zipper) and never worked with plaid before (fun with pattern matching). Luckily this class is only graded on how well the pants fit, but not how well they are constructed (pants construction is a separate class offering).