The Crafty Side of Life: Biker clothes, round two- Summer version

I have been putting off writing this post because... there is noting much I can write about this set.

Yes, I have already made a set of late Victorian/ early Edwardian biking clothes, and I already wrote about the whys and the hows of it. I also mentioned (or at least I think) that I meant it as a wearable mock-up, because the goal was to make a set for summer. Last year's swimsuits were rather popular, and we've planned a couple of events with the topic of sports and free time, and I wasn't about to get a heatstroke in a dark gray wool suit. Others in our group were planning to make that typical fluffy white lingerie dress (which I do have on my list, though not for now, but for a later time), but I wasn't about to stick out of our group like a sore thumb...

And I have already written about how a tiny small thing, like a fake flower in a shop-window, can spark an idea, that grows into a full set of clothes...

The spark in this case was an old linen table cloth crossing my path when I was looking for something totally different on am ebay-like second-hand/auction site... I LOVE blue and white small prints, whether it is on blue base and white patterns, or white based blue patterns, I love them. This was white based with small printed blue flowers on it. and it was adwertised as linen. (you know my saying: white, linen and has mother-of-pearl buttons... three things of which with two you can sell me anything.)

As soon as I saw that white based small blue print I knew I want to make it into a waistcoat. And I already knew that I would wear it with the shirtwaist I made from the fabric I had leftover from the bustle petticoat earlier this year...

...and then it was kind of self evident, that the set would look good with a pair of wite, linen bicycle pants...

Then I got the linen tablecloth... and it had stains in it... yellow foodstains... Obviously, they did try to wash it out- without much succes. First I was thinking that okay, I can cut out the two fronts of the waistcoat around those stains, but when I put up all the pieces of the patterns, one, there wasn't much left over, much less enough to maneuver around... two, the stains were practically all over the fabric.

So I dug around the Internet for stainremoval secrets... First I tried domestos (a chlorox like thing) directly applied to the spots... they got much lighter, but they were still visble... then I went, and bought everything I could find in the drugstore.

I made a paste out of the gallsoap, I rubbed the stains, I washed the thing about 4-5 times, leaving it soaking in different stainremoval solutions... Wasn't I afraid that I will totally ruin the fabric? Well, I thought that I cannot use with the stains anyway, what it would it matter if it did fall apart? So I was brave with my attacks. At the end, there came the point, when I could not decide that I only imagine the spots, my eyes are playing up, the sun and shades causing the color difference or they are still there...

That was when I decided okay, probably only I can see them, so I started cutting and sewing, which went on pretty much like the last three times (umm, yes, this is the fourth of these waistcoats, by this time I thing I can honestly say, I kinda like this pattern... don't you think?), and as always, I have to tell you, I have a rather good photosequence of making them, and I will post it as soon as we manage to photo *that* waistcoat- (which was I think the second of them).

As for the bloomers/bicycle pants/breeches call it whatever we want, I used the same base pattern from Black Snails, like I made the gray one from. For fabric... When we bought the linen for the renaissance shirt I made for my friend and teammate, I ordered an extra three yards for the breeches, but I got thinking... Now, since I made the waistcoat from recicled/ucycled material, I thought, what if I make the trousers from some old material... I have a couple of linen sheets in my stash. We bought them many decades ago, at one of those so called "KGST Markets" Those markets were popular in the last one or two decades of the socialist system, and were called so, because sellers from the KGST countries bought all kinds of stuff there, that we could not buy in regular stores. I bought romanian leather shoes there, which I loved, and used them for many years, until they fell apart, they had ben to the US with me many times. I still have some "tiffany like colored glass bowls, drinking glasses, I have polish plates for Pizzaand many, many
things one would not think of... and I also have a couple of linen sheets from Ukraine. I never used them, because they were single sheets not big enough for my bed, and I kept them with the intention of making something from them someday... and someday did come now, so now both pieces of the set are made from old material.

I did chopped off about 2 inches from the waist (just like last time, my wais IS short), and added whatever width I could to the legs to make them even more generous. I made the pockets ith buttons, and for once I managed to put the buttoned fly to the proper side. As with the mock-up, instead of the one bif fold, I used smaller pleats at the waist.