Version 3 of The Vampires Wife Inspired dress - REMADE!

Original dress was badly fitting and too big

So I took the dress appart a while back. You can see how it looked on the top right.

I had no black thread in the machine because I was at that time sewing lots of summer stuff with white thread so had to wait then to resew until I was had finished that job and changed back to the black thread I used for this dress. Yes I know its a bit lazy, but I find I am far more productive if I make several items with the same coloured sewing thread. Then I can steam through seams really quickly.

So for example I made a pair of trousers and some circle cullottes (More later on this in a separate post) both with white thread - see my later post on summer elastic waist clothing!

This means I can literally just sew all side seams, overlock them, sew fronts to back, overlock again on CB/CF seam, then move on to waistbands so I am sewing up two garments at once.

This saves time with swapping back and forth with the overlocker and sewing machine and changing coloured thread.

Since I usually know what I am making in the next few weeks it works well for me to sew like this.

I seem to always have a list of "intending to make soon" stuff so this is the way to produce loads with least stress and effort - for me anyway.

It also helps to keep the stash down. Its a very good way to sew when you are using basic or TNT patterns anyway. Obviously, if its a new pattern that takes loads of concentration to work out what to do, then it will not work so well.

And of course it means I have a blog post garment for a future week waiting for me to photograph and write about! Staying on target with approximately one post a week really does stretch me to be honest about things. Its OK when I make something fast and simple but not very achievable when making something like this dress that takes me more time.

I managed to make the waist tie do up off-centre as you can see here. That's due to my wearing this to travel to work before managing to get the photos taken.

Never mind! 

The ribbon belt is held to the dress with a couple of loops of thread at each side. Yes! I know I should make some proper chains to hold it in place and I will do eventually. It does do up at the centre, but slips a bit due to being shiny slippery double sided satin. 

I suppose I could fasten it on one side by sewing to the side seam so the bow stays in the CB. Right now I am not too worried about that but just happy to have made this dress fit me. 

I have to have this piece of ribbon because the waist seams are not pattern matched to the bodice seams - in fact it is not at all pattern matched unless by accident. I had no extra fabric from this dress for pattern matching and little left over (or maybe enough for a couple of hair ties ) due to having just 2m of this and it was also, as often seems to be the case not well cut, so I cannot make a matching waist tie belt either so a piece of ribbon ( salvaged from a posh box of biscuits someone gave us at work so would have been thrown in the bin and sent to landfill after we ate them otherwise) does the job.

This is the side view:

You can just about see here the side seam. I will get a better photo of this without the belt attached. The darts line up to the front/back bodice seams and the skirt side seam. Its a bit tricky to get this right and does mean quite a bit of pinning and messing around to get both sides to fit as well as making sure the front bodice and skirt side seams are exactly inline but it can be done with patience.

To make this fit from the original dress

 I took in all side seams but tapered them in so that I kept the original skirt hem width. I also took both sleeves out and re-inserted. This time I sewed the side bodice seams first then inserted the sleeves. The first time I sewed the sleeve onto the bodice with side seams open and then sewed the sleeve seam and side bodice as one seam so its constructed slightly differently here. This was the easiest way to reconstruct without totally dismantaling it. I also added gathers to the sleeve heads rather than pleats. The original The Vampires Wife dresses seem to have pleats ( and shoulder pads!).

My analysis of the 3 dresses based on the style of 

The Vampires Wife dress is as follows:

Version 1
This fitted pretty well for my first attempt at this style bearing in mind I have not really much idea of pattern cutting and just followed Winifred Aldrich's book - Metric Pattern Cutting - which I bought second hand to make this. It worked first time!

The sleeves though were not right in that instead of being puffed on the shoulder were the basic block sleeves because I thought they would need to fit from that perspective before making any changes to my basic block and rather than sew a hundred muslins first I wanted to make an actual dress so I had yet to make the puffed sleeve block. I was happy enough they just fitted into the bodice block with very little adjustment.







Version 2
The only changes I needed to make to the first dress pattern were the sleeves which for a real TVW style needed to be puffed at the shoulder. So I made a puffed sleeve. And of course this is the midi-skirt length




Version 3
I added more fabric to the top of the sleeves making them more roomey but kept the sleeve width at the bottom. I think this was a good change. The sleeves work better. I prefer the single to double frills but thats a cosmetic difference.

I also added 1cm at knee length to the skirt block and then tapered this to the waist so it was actually less than 1cm on the CF of this skirt block due to the fitted part of this skirt being well above the knee when not including the frill in this length. I do not think the skirt needed this. It sticks out just slightly at CF and I think the first two dresses were better without this.

I did the same to the back skirt block. This is a good alteration. The back skirt hangs better and its easier to walk with this, so I will do that alteration again for version 4 of this dress.

The neck is slightly wider on version 4 to the other two. I prefer this. Its more comfortable. Its really because I never did stay stitching me being lazy and then tried this on for fitting. The fabric is thin and I slightly ripped the neck down by about 1cm to had to lower it. I stay stitched after that though not just to prevent stretch but to stop further rips!

So now I have a reasonable idea of what I what my final, and 4th, version of  The Vampires Wife inspired dress is going to be from a pattern block point of view. I even know what fabric I am going to use to make it. Its likely to be my last version though for a while at least. Unless I cannot resist of course. Its been interesting that despite accurately cutting etc, I still needed to make adjustments to the second and third dresses. I suppose I need to take that on board.repeating something does not mean it works perfectly first time.

I have actually now started going through my wardrobe, partly due to what I found during the Me Made May adventure this year, where I realised quite a few items I do like, need a few minor changes to make them more wearable, so that is an ongoing background project. I will probably show you a few of these as I get round to sorting them out.

Back on the subject of The Vampires Wife style: I was interested to find this NEXT dress in my inbox:

Very The Vampires Wife really, though a different neckline.

I cannot help but notice the similarity though.

I do not expect to bother copying this version. I think with the latest dress I have planned, which will be version 4 of The Vampires Wife inspired dresses, I really will have quite enough of this style in my wardrobe. I really cannot resist making just one more though!

Bracken

Red Zouave style sweat pants

So yes its just about the middle of summer and its England and its cold so I decided rather than continue to freeze I would cozy up and make these zouave style sweatshirt pants. They are not quite zouaves but the closest I own in patterns. This is a Burda pattern from the 01/2011magazine and I have made this pattern before.

Green version made in 2017

I did as last time I made this pattern up and missed out the zip. The green pair I made were a very stretch woven cotton. This time though I deliberately ( as opposed to forgot) ignored the interfacing in the waistband because I wanted to make use of the stretch in the fabric. Well why add a zip closure when you do not need to?

Last time I added a long piece of fabric as the back waistband which I threaded elastic into and sewed it into the side seams - so the the back waist is elasticated but not the front waist (so not adding waist gathers as such the way the pattern tells you to with a fixed waistband and interfacing and a side zip) and that time I had a solid front V shaped panel ( as original pattern) with interfacing to stabilise. This time I just made the proper V shaped front and the original pattern back waistband and threaded elastic straight the way round. Its not super pretty to be honest but does work and I only want these to be "round-the-house-slobbing-in-the-evening-and-watching-TV" trousers.

They were very quick to make ( about 30 mins including cutting out and sewing up time) and as I intended warm and comfy tho I do admit somewhat lacking in style. But then I do not intend to wear them out of the house in public other than to pop down the garden and visit my hens. Perfect warm trousers for cold wet summer days/ evenings after work.

Now to making some more work-worthy clothing. Maybe time to finish a few UFOs?

Bracken

What bra?

I was browsing  Pinterest pages  today and found these:

I think they originate from M&S.

Knowing what bra goes with what is useful I find and this as anyone who visits my blog will probably already know is a serious problem for me.
1) I hate bras! Yes hate the things. As a young woman I never wore one but around the age of 42 I realised not wearing one was ruining the look of my clothing. Gravity set in. So nothing for it but to wear some kind of foundation garments. For many years I still did not wear a bra and relied on cropped tops - and what is now called bralets but I never wore actual underwear or not bras anyway and if I could get away with bikini ( as in swimwear knickers) that was ok too. It was the 1990s and small tops were everywhere making it very easy for me to use them as underwear.

Then around 10 years ago I bought some proper bras. All different types - pushup, Tshirt, whispy bits of lace bras, but bras I bought.

This did not actually help most of the time because I seem to choose the wrong type of bra for what I wear. For example look at this picture:

Its not an unusual look for me unfortunately. I have an extreme love of exercise tops/bras so wear them most of the time but they really do not help my wide necked ballet tops - except of course when I am actually aiming for that kind of look. I do wear lots of ballet style tops too.

And I do like the layers multi strapped tops look so its not always an accident but it belongs with casual weekend wear and not during work. I do have rubbish taste sometimes! I often go to work without actually looking in the mirror and then when I do realise how I look I spend the rest of the day sweltering with a jumper on, even if its hot to keep covered up my bad clothing mixtures.
Here's another example with a black exercise top poking out.

My blog is full of this. Sadly. I could say its just how I am. It really is, but I do feel even if I just sort it out for my blog I should try to get my head round this, because as I said, it does impinge on my life - and my sanity, as well as ruin some very good photos. In the case of the second picture I do not actually mind the look at all but its not a good look for work. They prefer you to be neater. Students can look like that, but the staff should be more tidy - I work in a University. Casual is really OK where I work but I sometimes manage to look a bit too casual.

You can even see a glimpse of unwanted under top spoiling the look here:


And here:

So bearing in mind my current newly found desire to make underwear - all sorts not just bras and knickers, but also bustiers and corsets then I do need to have a serious think about what I actually need. Its tempting you see to jump straight in there and make some nice wearable comfortable exercise tops but they would create the same looks as these pictures above - and there are many other examples on this blog!

I found these three photos pretty fast. I do not really want to find all the others! 

I know they are all over the place.

So instead I am now thinking making some nice wearable bras. So not straight away do I want underwires, or any other instrument of torture, but instead some (fashionable) soft bralets.

Maybe some knickers too because half of mine are falling apart. I manage to make some really wearable outer wear these days so now need to concentrate on getting the unseen foundation clothing sorted I think.

And its not like I have not eagerly collected every underwear pattern given away free that I have been fortunate to come across. I have. I have even printed some of them in anticipation - just never actually used them. Now is the time so watch this space.

The info on the picture charts above though is going to be very very useful to me. I have even printed these out - yes I really do need help believe me.

I cannot help but wonder though ...do other people have this problem or is everyone else all sorted when it comes to matching your underwear with your outerwear?

Is it really just me?

Bracken

31st May and its all over for another year

 I have just got loads of MMM round-ups into my inbox which has reminded me. I have been rather busy at home so have not till today managed to have time to write this post but I feel I really should.

In the end I very much enjoyed this month though remembering to take the pictures has been somewhat difficult. I have several times worn one outfit all day, forgotten the photo, come home from work, changed into something else and realised I forgot the photo. Mind you on most occasions I have found I am still wearing me mades but its an opportunity lost for the blog.

Anyway on the very last day of May 2019 I wore two me mades - my black top
my spotty top underneath it.

This is not the best photo - snatched on the way into work - but its all I managed that day.

I have enjoyed this year mainly because I realised just what I actually do and do not want to wear. Its meant quite a bit of clearing out of old me mades which shock!! 

means I can almost fit everything into my wardrobe without squashing it. Almost that is but not quite. I also realised some items I have are just winter and not wearable right now so that meant me spending Saturday morning sorting out summer from winter clothing and storing the winter stuff in wicker baskets which live on top of my wardrobe. Years ago I was seriously vigilant doing this but recently have not bothered with the end result I have far too many clothes that simply do not fit in and live in piles in a washing basket or hanging off the bed rail ( I have a 4-poster bed). This does make for a mess in the bedroom. And loads of mad rummaging in a morning when I am wasting time looking fo stuff which has before now made me late leaving for work. Not good. Stress I can do without anyway. Its all nearly Ok now. Progress in the right direction anyway even if its still not perfect. I also decided some things just need recycling - or if the fabric is particularly nice making into something new.
So what do I actually need? Underwear. I have only ever made one attempt to make underwear and that was many years ago. I found the first bra I made and wore it on Saturday to realise its actually not that bad for a first attempt. Not sure why I just threw it back into the stash back when I made it but I did, so my aim now is use up the small bits of fabric and jump on the underwear making bandwagon. And why not? New year and new me!

Thanks for visiting

Bracken

The Vampires Wife inspired dress (version 3) - sugar skulls and roses

So here is version 3 of The Vampires Wife inspired dresses. Or as it is so far. I decided to show you this depsite my problems with it.

Its based on TVW Birthday dress. I did the double elbow frills here and a single hem like the Birthday dress. All have rolled hems.

I am not too keen to be honest on the double sleeve frills and will probably not repeat unless its a very thin fabric ( which this actually is). maybe the sleeve frills are just a bit too long?

I did not pattern match at the waist so added a thin red satin ribbon which covers this and defines the waist. This dress does feel very 1980s. I had just under 2m of this so pattern matching was not possible. I have very little left over.


This is a 100% cotton. Its a very thin fabric - I managed to slightly rip the neck whilst fitting the bodice during construction - my own fault for not top-stitching round the neck - so its got a slightly lower neck than the first two versions to hide this. Having said that I think its a better size for the neck so thats one to remember.




It will be a perfect fabric if we get a hot summer though.

The fabric should be OK for work because it looks at first glance like its floral.

In fact it has sugar skulls as well and hearts and anchors. I like it.

I am not at all a fan of floral dresses which of course nearly all of the The Vampires Wife range are. I did use floral fabric for version one of my dresses inspired by this look but that was because I have a whole roll of floral cotton light weight curtain fabric which seemed a good choice - being a dress weight cotton - since this would allow me to make multiple variations as muslins in the same fabric to get the first dress to work.

As it turned out I did not need to make multiple versions because miracle of miracles the blocks I made actually fitted me - or nearly. I did need to adjust the top of the shoulders where the sleeve joins - not sure of the correct terminology for this bit of the pattern. Anyway I think probably the fabric I used for this dress is actually more authentically The Vampires Wife style than my previous two versions.




The sleeves have a slightly different block (see below)


After my analysis of the TVW sleeves in this post https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/04/update-on-vampires-wife-sleeves.html

I slightly altered my sleeve block to add more fabric down the centre of the sleeve at the top:







So below is my original sleeve from version 2 - the blue dress

My original puffed sleeve block

Version two sleeve was gathered. I realised later that the proper TVW dress has pleats at the sleeve head not gathers. I also read that it has shoulder pads - 1980s style!

I am not going to add shoulder pads to my dresses. I also think it has more volume mid sleeve as well so decided to attempt this.

To make my sleeve fuller I cut down the centre line of the original puffed sleeve block but I left the hem edge still intact and uncut then and spread the rest out to add some more space in the middle, drew the top line in and made the sleeve block below:

New fuller sleeve block with extra space in centre of sleeve

This is not a very good photo but all I took of this sleeve during doing this. I added seam allowance as you can see when cutting.

So I went ahead and cut this sleeve for version 3. Then though I found this version of The Vampires Wife dress the other day - see below orange dress. Its different in that the sleeve frills have a contrast lining. Easy to do of course assuming the lining fabric is not too thick because I had some problems trying to gather two layers of cotton fabric for my first version of The Vampires Wife inspired dress.This time I gathered each separately and then sewed on separately.

This picture of the orange dress is interesting in the fact the sleeves seem quite narrow, like my own version 2 pattern which I used to make the blue dress, but my third version I have added a little extra fabric to the centre of the sleeve block by slashing down.

I am now wondering if I needed to do this at all. But then its not about making an exact copy of The Vampires Wife dress but a similar style which fits me and makes me feel comfortable and keeps the essence of that look so I suppose really that does not matter.

AND I am learning how altering a pattern effects the end result here so its all very interesting!

Version 3

I realised that version 3 is bigger - wider across the bodice which makes it more boxy. I also think the sleeve/ shoulder heads are too far out on my arms. Or not properly on my shoulders. These sleeves are pleated not gathered at the shoulder but even then its just not right and does not fit which is a shame since this is the more expensive fabric. I already took the shoulder in by about 1cm - making it harder to unpick!

Unfortunately this dress is entirely overlocked inside as well!

I am not keen on the shape at all if I have no belt. Its just not as fitted as it should be. Though I think the version the model wears above is too tight. Its not stretch fabric and I need to be able to move.
But having said that this version of mine is too big for me.

Its not a simple job to take it in. It will need to be deconstructed and remade but possibly better to attempt this than leaving as it is.

I am now considering taking the sleeves off and resewing the bodice side seams but keeping the skirt width almost the same because the bodice darts do line up as intended with the side seams as here. I have not taken a photo of the skirt and side seams but will add one later. It all lines up anyway.

It is definitely not as fitted as I would like. Or as fitted as the first two dresses. I do not want to end up with a tight skirt again though and have to let it out as the blue dress.

But probably it would be worth me taking the extra time to make this version right, as I did with the blue dress. I now love my blue dress despite a few imperfections.

However as already stated this fabric is pretty thin ( unlike the blue dress fabric) and not very strong so maybe in some aspects it is best left alone.
What a dilemma!

I will be risking wrecking it if I start to take this apart. 

Without doing so tho I probably will not feel I want to wear this so I should make the attempt to put it right and the fabric is much liked and has been hoarded for over a year waiting for something worth making.

Something for me to ponder on I suppose. 

I am also not at all sure about those fuller sleeves. I cannot change them of course for this dress, but may not repeat them.

Should I make yet another version of this dress and go back to the version 2 sleeves?

I do prefer this length of skirt so that is a plus.

I was not going to make a fourth dress but may have to just to get it right one time.

Ah this is a project all right!

UPDATE: I have now taken this dress to pieces and am going to remake it. I just could not live with an ill fitting dress when made of such lovely fabric. See later for more on this particular project.

Bracken

27th, 28th, 29th and 30th May 2019

27th May
It was Bank Holiday on Monday. and we were busy with gardening, dog walking etc. I wore my lovely skull print gypsy top with myfaux leather RTW skirt. I am currently attempting to wear out all faux leather having had two differnt items of clothing disintegrate on me which is a waste. In both cases I wore them rarely since they wre somewhat " precious". Obviously a complete waste so now I am wearing the rest of my faux leather to death and getting as much out of it as possible. This skirt is actually a really nice wrap skirt with a zip fastening. I should copy this one.

And look at my lovely puppies - now approaching 9 months old. You will have toe excuse the mess - this was taken amid putting up of gazebo, planting bedding plants and installing two water features (thats what is in the box next to me). These have to be packed away every winter so they do not freeze. Summer is really here at last when they finally come out of storage!

28th May
First day back at work and I wore my lovely Oki dress. Its the first outing this year for this dress which works well in summer and spring but less so for winter and I wore it to work as well and yes it works just brilliant as a work dress so I will be wearing it again. I felt really good all day!

 

29th May 

I wore one of my "odd bits dresses" which are made form the off-cuts of fabric from other projects. This is an early version. I think the skirt is a bit too long but I suppose thats good work-wise. It does not quite feel right somehow. Its comfortable but lacking something. Too frumpy maybe?

Still its a work dress thats a bit different for no outlay other than time taken finding bits of fabric that will fit the pattern pieces and since the bits of fabric were all small-ish thats actually quite a bit of time, but still well worth the effort I think. Oh and time to sew it up but that is fast.

Not my favourite version of this pattern but good all the same. Gives me a different look on rainy days when its actually quite cold despite officially being Spring. And you cannot love everything that you make if you really do make everything you wear. Its just how it works.

Like not every RTW dress you buy will turn out to be a favourite either. Some are just staples. There will always be favourites and this one is not a favourite. I have since made several other versions of this pattern that I prefer to this one, thats all.

One other thing with this version: if I wear all day as I have in this photo the faux leather gets very creased. Some of my other versions look better at the end of the day. Down to fabric differences or fibre differences I think rather than my skills.

This defo does not compare with the Oki dress though. Now that is a lovely different dress. I should make a few more of them.

30th May 

Today I decided to finally get round to wearing my version 2 TVW style dress for work. After all it took me ages and loads of effort to make this and the weather forecast said no rain. Just in case I wore proper shoes rather than sandals since it has been pretty rainy the last couple of  days. I am reasonably happy with version 2 now I have changed the back to fit me better. Despite this I seem to only see what could be improved. Its still a pretty nice summer dress though!

Anyway May 2019 is nearly done with. So sad. I have been enjoying myself this year,

Bracken

20th to 26th May 2019

Monday 20th
Yellow top and black pinstripe flares- it was too warm a combination for the day so will not be wearing again this summer unless we get some very wintery weather!

Tuesday 21st
Ladybird top  with RTW trousers and vest underneath it.

Wednesday 22nd
Not at work today so wore things I would not wear to work
Navy mesh top with gingham trousers ( made for Gingham Along several years back - I really enjoyed kingham along!)


Thursday 23rd
Khaki top and black panel trousers

Friday 24th
Burda Style A-symetric dress 
To be honest wore this with black leggings for work but was too hot and took them off when I got home. Nearly forgot to take this photo in fact!
I do not like my black leggings. They go baggy at the knees despite being made form a  lycra rich fabric. Not good for work in future me thinks. Did not realise how out of shape and fat I look in this dress till I saw these photos. Kind of sad because I like this dress. In fcat I made twoof these because I love it so much. Never mind once I get my hip op I can hopefully get a bit toned and look less old and saggy.

Saturday 25th
Black upcycled top which started life as a  very cheap New Look dress. I only chopped it a few weeks back and do not think I blogged about it. Easy change though I just chopped and overlocked the hem. It is suddenly worn lots to rather than less than once a year sowas a good idea depite my wondering if I was doing the right thing. No point owning stuff if you never wear it. And of course thats the whole point of Me Made May. With my top I wore my red wrap skirt. It's mean't to be worn with the wrap at CF but I usually seem to wear the shorter bit at the side. Doesn't matter, its a good skirt either way and made from a free pattern.

Sunday 26th
Another upcycled T-shirt. I love this skulls top.
Worn with ancient camo trousers which I use for gardening and decorating. I suppose you could say these are Me Made since I broke the zip many years ago ( back in the 1990s ) and added a lacing to the fly to close them and of course cut them off and covered them in paint ( by accident).

I have to admit all of these photos except for Tuedays I had to take at home at the end of the day due to having totally forgot about it. Life is just too hectic. I have worn Me Made all week tho so never mind. I do prefer in situ photos rather than at home ones because I have very little choice of background scenery having just a normal sized garden. Still these are my photos.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Sadly just a few days left of #MMM2019 now and despite my feelings at the start of the month I have enjoyed this year of Me Made May after all.

Bracken

Sunday 19th May 2019

Sunday 19th wore my self drafted lovely top made form thin unknown fibre fabric.


This particular top is an old one - I am off to the garden centre here and it was just starting to rain.

Despite the simplicity of this design I probably wear these more than any of my other me made items.

Mesh version of my self drafted tops

.

I have lots of these tops. 

I wear them over my T shirts, vests, dresses, swimwear and bustiers in summer and winter. 

A bit punk with their exposed seams, I can also wear them with the seams the normal way inside ( as above) but prefer the outside exposed seams look and did actually design them to be worn this way. 

If I am honest I just put them on and wear whichever way round it turns out. That, you have to admit makes for an easy clothing item!

You can find out how to make these easy versatile tops here: 7: Dark navy top with a step by step tutorial guide to making

Thanks for popping by

Bracken

Saturday - slobbing whilst decorating #MMM2019

I know not at all glamourous!

Saturday I continued in repairing the decorating to my lounge which was wallpaper stripped by my lovely dogs so I wore old clothing for this and then after the decorating I went out and started on cleaning out my hens so needed to wear practical old clothing for that also  - My huge warm  me made jumper and upcycled celtic cycle Tshirt.







The jumper is made without a pattern so is just rectangles with some sleeve, shoulder  and neck shaping so its amazing to have virtually worn this out cos I love it so much. Yarn was from Aldi so was not expensive and my first venture in about 20 years into knitting so was a big success despite being a shapeless huge thing. That does make it very warm and very comfortable though.

In fact I really need to get round to making some new jumpers because all of mine are pretty much warn out now. The problem is I have a small amount of free time and tend to spend it sewing. Maybe its time for a small break.

Mind you before long that will be enforced for 6 weeks due to my impending hip replacement op so maybe I should spend that time knitting. As I understand it I am pretty much going to be unable to sew anything, so knitting could be a good way to go whilst healing. Also it would mean I could reduce some of my yarn stash. The yarn stash is no where near as big as my fabric stash but considering I average finishing a knitted item about every 4-5 years its far too big. If I could get two half knitted jumpers ( I have several half knitted items!) finished in 6 weeks that would be really helpful both wardrobe wise and life wise. I reckon its possible. Mind you I also want to learn ( via You Tube) to play the ukelelle so thats on my recovery to do list first.

Anyway must look out my pictures from Sunday now

Bracken