Sunday, March 30, 2014

Aerial Star light

My sister knows that I sew. However, I'm a terrible sister and have never made anything for either of the two that I have (must do better!). This one particular sister also knows that I tend to procrastinate about things which had led to some trust issues about requesting things to be made, but I'm glad she changed her mind on this one.

She does aerial arts and has recently started competing. Last year she had a costume made by someone that she paid a few hundred bucks for. When I saw the video of her performance and then finally saw the finished garment, I was surprised at the level of workmanship on the garment in relation to the price that she charged. I haven't sewn with to many knits so far, but I immediately figured I could do better. So sis and I talked about it and came up with a design that would be able to work for her next completion. I was excited (yay, she's letting me do something for her!).

So in usual Afro fashion, I procrastinated, but I was able to finish the garment a week before the competition. I used Jalie 3134 and modified it so that the sides were cut out. We used a blue swimwear fabric along with a sheer sparkly black for the contrasting panels and was lined with a lovely swimsuit lining (Helenka swimsuit lining) from NYfashioncenterfabrics.com (i'm only disgruntled that the shipping cost is practically the same as the cost of the fabric, but it was worth it). The hand of the lining is great and sewed like butter when I interlined it with the blue fabric for the center bodice. I also modified the back geometry so that more of her back is exposed by reducing the rise of the lower panel. I found that the pattern runs a little small; my sister has a longer torso than me but when I tried it on myself for fitting, it fit me perfectly. The size ended up working on her but I'll take this into account next time. I also need to work on my elastic application skills. I messed up but I know the general idea of what I did wrong so that I can fix it for next time.  

I'm posting some stills from her performance, I think the costume looked great, and I was especially happy since this was the first time i'd ever sewn a garment like this. (fun fact, this is all sewn on a regular machine). Just a warning, there's some serious muscles about to be shown in these pics so try not to be as jealous as I am of her!







4 comments:

  1. Gorgeous! I have often wondered what could come of learning these type of moves. She looks awesome, and the suit is on point for the event.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You should see how strong she is! I've tried it and when I realized how difficult it is to do the moves just from lacking strength (and from not numbing some of my nerves!), I just appreciated the art so much more. Look at some videos for pole competitions and you'll really respect the artistry!

      Delete