Remaking The Tardis Jumper

I mentioned before that I lost weight this year but what I didn’t mention was that while going through my closet to see what fit me and what didn’t, a majority of my costumes and “geeky” convention-appropriate clothing was too big for me as well. I’m still not at my goal weight (Or anywhere near there) but I’m not big enough for my clothes to fit me well either. So, for the past few months I was trying to decide what I wanted to keep and fix up to fit me, what to get rid of, what I wanted to remake, and what to just keep as a memento of how my work has evolved over the years.

One of the clothes I had in my closet that I wanted to get rid of and remake in a smaller size is my Tardis jumperskirt. I made the first one a year ago using McCall’s pattern 7184 and it was too big for me back then. Now that I lost some weight, it’s now way too big for me! I seriously considered taking the skirt in, but after looking at everything I need to do to make it fit me now and after I lose more weight, I realized it was just easier to make the whole thing over again.

Making a jumperskirt using McCall’s 7184 was not that hard, but since I wanted to make it in a way I could adjust the size of it as I lose weight, I had to study the pattern’s instructions to see what I could do to make it fit my requirements. I ended up deciding to move the zipper from the back to the side of the skirt and add laces to the back section of the skirt. Before I cut the fabric, I decided to see what the pattern pieces would look like and how they would sit on my dress form.

Since my newer dress form fits my current measurements, I had to bring my old dress form out and adjust it to the measurements I might have when I lose weight. To be honest with you, I really don’t know what my measurements will be once I’m done losing weight, so I’m just guessing what it could be and what the pattern would look like at those specific measurements. The most important thing about the size of this jumperskirt is that it fits me right now and I can adjust the size of the jumperskirt as I lose weight. After putting the pattern pieces on my dress form, I could see that it would look fine if I made the back piece larger than the rest of the skirt’s pieces. So, I proceeded to cut out the fabric.

Joann’s still sells this Tardis fabric (As of November 2016) and is so popular I cannot find more than two yards at my closet Joann’s. I ended up ordering it online so I could get the continuous yardage I needed to make the skirt. I like this fabric, but it’s not a great choice for this jumperskirt. The fabric is 45 inches wide and the pattern goes in one direction. Using fabric like this for the jumperskirt means that I needed a lot of fabric to make sure the pattern is consistent throughout the skirt (I bought 6 yards and used nearly all of it) and there is a lot of waste. I’m wasn’t sure what to do with the waste fabric from my first skirt, and now that I have the waste fabric for this skirt and my previous skirt, I’m really not sure what to do with all this cut fabric! I’m almost tempted to make a crazy quilt dress with all the fabric, but I’m not that wild about the idea. Mostly because it will be a pretty wild dress. Especially if I add some of the other fabric Joann’s has in the Doctor Who collection to the dress.

Anyway, after I cut out all the pieces, I set to work on making the skirt itself. One of the more important things I did was add the laces to the skirt. I did this by taking ribbon, making loops out of it, and sewing the loops onto the back panels of the skirt.

I decided to make the loops out of ribbon because I never intended on making the skirt to be super tight fitting. I’ve had good results using ribbon as lacing for non-lace tight clothes, so I’m not concerned about the ribbons being too weak to take the stress.

After I finished sewing the laces to the back of the pattern, I sewed the rest of the skirt together. I used french seams on my first jumperskirt, and I liked the way it turned out so well I used it on my new skirt. After that was done, I sewed the straps, facing, zipper,hem,  and buttons onto the skirt.

Looking back on this skirt, I realized I sewed the buttons onto the skirt wrong. The buttons should be on the straps, not the skirt. Oops. I can fix it, and plan to, but in the finished photos of this jumperskirt the buttons are not on the straps.

Speaking of the finished photos of the jumperskirt, here they are…

As you can probably see, the straps are too long. I didn’t mean to cut them too long, but they are. Since I need to sew the buttons onto the straps instead of the skirt, I can shorten the straps and sew the buttons onto them without ripping the facing out. Yay!

As for the lacing in the back of the dress…

When I took the photos of the jumperskirt on the dress form, I set the dress form’s measurements smaller than mine so I can show the lacing better in the photos. (I don’t think I’ll be the size I set the dress form at, but, like I said, it does show the lacing better.) After tightening the lacing, I didn’t like how the top of the back slouched. It looks fine in the photo, but that was because I pulled the fabric up. That could be a problem when I wear it because I cannot see if there the back of the skirt needs to be pulled up. I have ideas on what to do, but I need to experiment with them to see what will work best.

So, that’s it for my jumperskirt! I have some other clothes and costumes I want to make and work on, but I’m waiting until the new year to talk about them.

Thank you for reading!