Looking to make clothing for purchase

[Niobe]

I love to sew and I am looking to make a smidgen of money on the side since I'm currently a student.

Here are some examples of my work:
Feast Dress made for Chaos wars

Dress made for Ryzby's daughter

I guess if you need/want to see more let me know I'll get pics. I charge for materials and time. It took me about an hour to cut the second dress, two hours sewing time and I think it will take about an hour to do finishing touches like grommets and hemming.

[Neko]

I'm interested in actually having a nice dress to prance around in.

[Niobe]

LOL what kind of prancing, something practical or something to wear to feast night? I can do either. I've been thinking about trying to make something similar to the dress that Lucy wears in Prince Caspien where it looks like a dress but has flowing pants underneath...looking for a good picture of what I mean. That would be a practical type dress, whereas what I typically make is more of a feast dress.

I usually make my dresses out of machine-washable fabric but I'm flirting with the idea of nice stuff that may have to be dry cleaned.

I can't remember if I mentioned it but I would also be willing to try my hand at feast garb for guys. I'm pretty much willing to try anything. I've also been thinking about movie re-creations...

[Narin]

Do you have an estimated cost of a feasting dress of moderate fanciness?
EDIT: Actually, how much did that second dress go for, cause I love it and if you could make another one like it and the price was in my range, I would consider buying it!

[Niobe]

I'm think about $70 for that blue dress. It was a children's dress so the materials weren't too bad. Regardless of the size it takes me about the same amount of time to make the dress roughly 4 hours or so depending on how complex it is. For an adult dress like that I would say somewhere around the 80-90$ range due to materials. For something more complex I'd say somewhere around 100$. For menswear I have no clue since I've never made anything for a guy. Bortas does all his own sewing...

I need to scan my current patterns. I also don't charge for the cost of getting a new pattern since I'll likely use it more than once.

[Narin]

Cool, I'll have to think about it, I'm a little tight with the finances this month, but I would love to have a dress better made than the one I attempted to make...lol

[Neko]

feasting garb, I prance around regardless.

I also like the pattern of the blue one

[Niobe]

Removed as to avoid copyright infringement.

-Niobe

[Ilariia Bulochnika]

Be careful about posting those pics with saying you are going to make & sell them. All of those patterns are copyrighted for home use only, not commercial.

If you make alterations to the patterns & generate your own patterns, you won't be violating the copyright.

[Niobe]

Wow I did not know that, so I guess if you want a dress made I'll have to alter it. Found this on ebay:

Since I still see sellers making copies of simplicity patterns for sale on ebay I wrote to simplicity and asked them what their policy on this was. Here is what I received in an email back from them:

Thank you for your recent inquiry concerning acquiring our patterns for commercial use.

Patterns are considered printed matter and are covered under copyright laws. On most envelope backs we mention "To be used for individual private home use only and not for commercial or manufacturing purposes". Treat them just like you would books or videos---you can share them with anyone but once you start making copies, and especially if you are selling those copies, you are clearly violating the rights of the author/designer.

If you are sewing as a seamstress, the legal interpretation is that the customer requesting the garment owns the pattern and you are only selling your work or skills as a seamstress.

If you are sewing clothes in mass production, for the retail or wholesale market, no matter how small the volume, you are selling the design-which in this case belongs to Simplicity. You would therefore be in violation of the copyright laws.

We hope this explains our standing in this situation. Thank you for taking the time to contact us, and we appreciate your inquiry.

So in short I can sew a dress for a pattern YOU own or create my own dress.

I am removing the links to the patterns.

After many hours of research I found out Burda Style has made their patterns open source and they encourage people to alter and sell their creations (with credit to them). So I guess with some creative sewing I can make dresses that are close to period using pieces from their patterns. I think my best bet will be to make dresses as creatively as possible and offer them up.

[Ilariia Bulochnika]

What if you work with developing ideas with your clients, then if one of those patterns fits the bill, use it. Make sure you purchase the pattern for them & include the price (& document it!) within your cost. When you are done with the item, they get the pattern with the item & you are fulfilling your role as a seamstress.

[Niobe]

Oooh now that was something I hadn't thought of. Good thinking there! As I also added to my previous post Burda Style now has open source patterns so if anyone sees something there (it's mostly mundane clothing but I might be able to make alterations) I could do that as well.

-Niobe
P.S. the pretty blue dress is a child size dress so I'd have to find a way to create an adult sized pattern for that one.

[p_quick]

do you make Dude clothes?

[Oisin]

What he said . . .

[Niobe]

I could, Bortas has a style/pattern of his own for a simple tunic. As far as pants go...I know they are harder to make right. But I might be able to find a way. Someone else I know expressed interest in hakimas (did I spell that right??)
So I guess yes, make a formal request and I will see what I can do. I'd want to know colors/style and what you want made.

[Oisin]

How much would you charge to make a relatively simple gored and gusseted tunic from material I supplied? A light wool that's fairly easy to sew, but would need the seams to be finished?

[Niobe]

I found a website, this is something I've never done before so I think I'll try it out on some scraps first, let me know if what he is explaining is what you want:
http://www.vertetsable.com/demos_goresgussets.htm
http://www.vertetsable.com/demos_rectangles.htm

[Oisin]

That's pretty close. Here's a great tutorial of exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for that a friend of mine named Alric posted on the Dag boards:

http://www.dagorhir.com/gear/content/ga ... _tunic.php

Except I prefer the gussets to be much, much smaller in size. Like 4" square instead of 10" square or else they turn into really weird baggy underarms.

[Ilariia Bulochnika]

Cheating on me, eh?

[Oisin]

With every woman in Bel, Dag and that hot chick from Role Models. ;-)

[Niobe]

I have an old sheet I can try this on to make sure I can actually do it. I'll try to start it tonight when my boys are in bed, once the week starts my time is a little limited with practicum (kinda like student teaching) and night classes. But I will do my best to give you a yes/no answer by this weekend.

[Ilariia Bulochnika]

With every woman in Bel, Dag and that hot chick from Role Models. ;-)

HA!

When are we going to raise a beer next?

[Oisin]

Not sure. Where are you living these days? Bowling Green?

[Ilariia Bulochnika]

Glasgow, so close enough. You going to Olympics or Beltaine?

[Oisin]

See PM's so we aren't clogging her thread.

[Niobe]

I don't mind.

So I was actually pretty ambitious and went ahead and made a tunic for my 4 year old (I needed some measurements) . Unfortunately he had to hit the sack before I was done. I took pics of it just on a hanger. I did a crappy job on the collar (normally I would use lining). I didn't hem it either. Found out a couple things about gores. The ones in the middle are a pita, but I think with a little practice I could do it right. I had to rip some seams to get the bunching to diminish. In the morning I'll get pics of him wearing it.





Click on the thumbnails to see a larger pic.

Thank goodness for old flat sheets!

[Niobe]

Here are some pics of my little man wearing his tunic.






So yes I can make guy clothes. Next up, I'm going to attempt some pants for him using gussets and a technique I saw at an earlier website.

[Oisin]

Thorsberg-style trousers? That's a good pattern, and open source for obvious reasons, but to be honest, I've found that a modern drawstring-waist pajama pants pattern (sans any elastic and pockets) in linen or wool sized one too large works just as well. It has a lot less seams to finish, requires a lot less cutting and sewing, and looks completely period . . . especially once you're wearing a thigh-to-knee length tunic that covers most of it up.

[Niobe]

Not sure if it is Thorsberg but I haven't gotten around to it in any case

School is soaking up my time pretty badly, I have several major projects due in a couple weeks, then a short break followed by 12 weeks of student teaching in kindergarten!! But I'm sure I can find the time to sew. (or at least I hope to...)

I wanted to let you guys know that I live in Bremerton, WA (shipping purposes) and that if I have to hock all I own somehow Bortas and I will make it to Chaos Wars this year ('09). I plan to have clothing to sell, male and female style. Bortas even suggested I bring the sewing machine just in case. So if anyone is interested in something I can make and bring let me know.