First Lesson- bodice drafting

Part of my review of the calendar lead me to the conclusion that I have been teaching backwards. I was starting with hand sewing, moving on o machine sewing, and then, possibly to pattern-making and measuring. And this seems forward. It is how I learned. It is how most everyone learns. However, I have been sewing since I was 4 years old, so that would be 33 years. I am still not an expert. What I have to do is take students who will be with me at most 4 years and at least one semester and not only teach them something, but teach them something that will be useful to me/the costume shop.

So, in the costume shop, we start by measuring, then making patterns, the machine sewing mock-ups, then fitting, then revising patterns, the machine sewing real fabric, then fitting again, and the hand-sewing. Also, to be frank, I am so fast and good and hand sewing that I can basically complete something in 15 minutes that will take my students hours. Seriously, I am a hemming machine. Also, students seem to HATE hand sewing. And the only way to get really good at it is by doing it a lot. Way more than we have time for.

Now, a hand-sewing anecdote: How I became good at hand-sewing.

It is about 1/2 experience and 1/2 patience. The patience came with age. Seriously, I turned 28, and all of the sudden hand-sewing didn't make me crazy. It was relaxing and zen, and I could do it easily while doing other things. The experience also, sort of, came with age. I have done a lot of it. But it mostly came from working wardrobe. When I worked wardrobe, they would call us in toward the end of the construction process to help get things ready. And they didn't give us "hard" jobs. It was all hemming, and tacking facings, and sewing on snaps, and lingerie hooks, and skirts hooks, and other hooks, etc etc. I have probably sewn on thousands of fasteners and done hundreds of hems. And before I was 28, I hated it. In addition, working wardrobe, those were the things that needed to be repaired many times over. So then I learned to do them REALLY well so I didn't have to repair them!

Although I still want to expose my students to hand sewing, I have come to the conclusion that harping on it only "annoys me and frustrates the pig".

Therefore, my first lesson is to two of my returning students, who are fairly proficient already on the machine, and in hand sewing, and have designed student shows.

I planned on teaching them how to measure for and draft a bodice block. I used this tutorial from Burda Patterns which uses fewer measurements than I am used to, but has the added bonus of a sleeve draft that seems to relate to the bodice draft. The sleeve pattern fitting in the armhole is my nemesis. Seriously, I have never yet been successful.

I also created, using my awesome administrative assistant skills, an excel spreadsheet which would convert the measurements to centimeters, and do all the calculations for the pattern in both imperial (converted to sixteenths) and metric (to the hundredths place). I hate doing math and I love spreadsheets.

So I met with L and B on Sunday and we worked through the bodice together. They measured each other, and each created a pattern for the other. We did the measurements as they went along, rather than all in the beginning.

This was a qualified success- we ended up with bodice patterns!

Things I would keep:

1. Measuring as we went along really helped them identify how what they were measuring matched parts of the bodice.

2. Me talking them through it rather than students following the tutorials themselves. The tutorial is pretty wordy

3. The timing-- before measurements

4. The tutorial itself is good so far

5. Only teaching 2 people. Three I would not be able to handle.

6. Using the tutorial to explain why we have ease, the difference between movement ease and design ease, and also why we do not end the dart directly on the bust point.

Things to change

1. Students need own computer. Me trying to keep track of 2 spreadsheets on one computer and read the measurements out to them was super annoying. Also detracted from them doing it on their own which will help them on the next bodice.

2. Possibly the above would solve this problem, but it was too long. We went over by 45 minutes, and I was getting tired and irritated and so were they. I tend to lose my verbal explanation skills, and resort to manipulating their hands on the rulers!. Consider splitting into 2 one and 1/2 hour sessions.

3. I think I may need to write out a tutorial if this method works, as the dude who writes this is super-wordy.

4. Need more L-squares- we had to share one (these are on order)

5. Consider changing lesson to centimeters.

Planning

I have spent more time prepping for this year than ever before-- in fact I think this may be the first time I have had the energy to do a lot of pre-planning. I was able to work with a friend who recently completed work on her Masters degree in Education, and even though she was in elementary education it was very helpful. Although I had originally intended on being a teacher, I have little formal education in the art of teaching. My background is in being a student, a higher education program assistant, and in costume design and wardrobe. However, for almost 10 years I have been "teaching" a costume lab and running a costume shop at a University. This is rather odd given that my background includes neither teaching nor working in costume construction. Over the years, I have increased my knowledge in costume construction a great deal and now I want to begin a more organized method of sharing this with my students both those who are taking a class and those who are paid assistants.

There are several obstacles to this goal. First, it has been made clear over the years by our department head and artistic director that our main objective is the show, not the students. he feels that they will learn things by being along for the ride, so to speak. Because all of our designers are NOT in residence, and in fact have only three visits to our facilities, the ride sometimes happens without them! But I cannot reduce the quality of the work in any way, so I am in the position that if something a student creates in unsatisfactory, I will need to redo it.

Second, I am "part-time" contract employee who gets paid, frankly, a pittance. One year I calculated my hourly rate, and it comes out to about $1.87 per hour. I hold a fairly challenging full-time job during the day and in order to survive monetarily I need to make sure that my day job has priority. I do not have one more minute in the day I can add to working in the costume shop.

Third, I am by my nature a disorganized person. I always complete things on time, but the path to that is sometimes fraught with procrastination. I do not feel it is fair to make other people work in a frenzy due to my procrastination, so I am often completing things alone I also spend my day job organizing other people, so often my organizational skills are completely spent before I arrive at the shop.

Fourth, I receive little to no support from the full time production staff, which includes a full time production manager, technical director, carpenter/painter and stage assistant/props master. I am, in fact, expected to seek out any information I miss from production meetings, staff meeting, and other talk during the day, either by asking or by sending a student to the meetings in my stead. I used to be angry about this, but now I just sort of laugh. There is a systemic devaluing of costumes which I feel is related to clothes/sewing/crafting being "feminine", but I can no longer fight that fight.

Finally, the outside designers are not educators. They are not doing this to educate people. Because of the part of their career path they are on, they are looking for really good portfolio pieces. Most of them are uninterested in working with unskilled students themselves, and frustrated both the part-time nature of my position and the fact that there is no separate time for students to learn skills-- they have to learn them while working on the show costumes.

The only parameter I can change is my personal disorganization. The other obstacles just need to be worked around. I am hoping by taking the time for some early prep, revising when I teach certain things to match the trajectory of the show, and by empowering students upfront I will be able to increase student learning and satisfaction while not adding significantly, and perhaps subtracting from, the time I spend at this job.

So, with this said, this year my goals are:

1. To empower the students to help themselves on projects, research, and skills building

2. To help each student improve their concrete costume constructions skills to the next level

3. To teach students in such a way that it relieves the pressure for me to complete all the costumes

4. To imbue students with a love of theatre, theatre costumes, and an understanding of WHY we do things

5. To increase students' independence and leadership skills with their peers

6. To keep the shop organized and easy to use