I have a conundrum and I was hoping someone (or multiple someones) could offer some advice on solving it.
I do 13th century costuming, which means rectangular body panels, and I've started doing embroidered trim for them, so far just collar and cuff embroidery. This gets done separately and then sewn to the garment, which is not a problem for the Consort's tunics as he used to be a swimmer and has lovely straight shoulders.
This is the sort of embroidery I am talking about--a circle but not the entire keyhole: http://img193.imageshack.us/i/dsc6499k.jpg/ This is the Consort's outfit, which you will notice lies nice and flat when you arrange it to photograph it (or to attach the finished embroidery). I use the template for the keyhole neckline placket for the proper sizing.
But apparently I have to be special. My shoulders slope pretty dramatically--I have lovely Victorian champagne-bottle shoulders--which means that to fit smoothly my gowns get a little more tailoring. Specifically, I sew the two body panels together straight, do the neckline with a keyhole facing and then re-cut the panels (starting from the seam on the neck facing) down at an angle out to the point of the shoulder. The result is that it drops the point of the shoulder down about 1 1/2", but then when it comes time to attach the embroidery to the gown there is more embroidery than there is gown and it won't lie flat.
I am a mediocre seamstress at best. I can handle straight lines pretty well, and I can follow a printed pattern, but I have no idea how to do sophisticated tailoring. So I have come to ask if there is another way to tailor the shoulders so that everything will lie nice and flat for the embroidery, or if it would be better to do something different with the embroidery.
Many thanks, Jen/pixel/Margaret _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
