Toile Diary; Short shoulder dress

I started off creating the pattern for my short dress by firstly tracing off simple shorter dress block. Then I started to adapt the pattern to fit into my design.

I took out the shoulder dart on the front pattern and re opened it just under the underarm seam. I then drew a line where I wanted the sleeve to attach to the front and back pieces.

I have never used this sleeve method before but I found it relatively easy to pattern and I liked the way I could chose where I wanted my sleeve to fit and where I wanted the seam to meet at the front and back of the garment, which was in the middle of the neck.

I then cut down the line I had drawn on the front and back pattern and separated the 2 parts on each pattern.

After tracing out a standard sleeve block and just narrowing the sleeve by taking 3cm off the bottom at each side, I was then able to stick on the top parts of the front and back dress block I had separated, I had to make sure I attached them at the exact correct point though and made sure I had notched the parts properly to make it easier for me when I had to sew in the sleeves.

I could then trace around my front and back dress blocks that now had the top missing where I had added a seam, I added a 1cm seam allowance and traced around my new sleeve with the two pieces added onto the top and again added a 1cm seam allowance.

As the front had 4 inverted darts, I used the same method I used on my long dress and just divided the dart at the front of the front dress block into 4 separate darts, on my long dress I had 5 darts but as there was a seam going down the center front, I decided 2 seams either side would be enough.

Once I had cut out my patterns out of calico, I started off by sewing in the darts.

I then sewed the two front and back pieces together by sewing down the center fronts with a 1cm seam allowance.

Now that the 2 fronts and 2 backs were sewn together, I could put my sleeves in. I pinned them into place making sure I sewed the right parts together and matched up the correct notches.

The sleeves were actually relatively easy to sew on and I really liked this new method and the effect is gave.

I then sewed the shoulders together with a 1cm seam allowance.

I then sewed along the underarm seam and down the side of my dress with a 1cm seam allowance, so now my dress was more or less all put together. I placed the closed end zip in last and decided to use a closed end zip as i fancied the zip as being a feature in the dress and I did quite like the fact it showed up rather than being hidden like a concealed zip.

I am leaving the hem and sleeves and facing until I create my final garment but I am very pleased with the final outcome and I will look at my final garment to decide whether or not I need to put in any shoulder pads or not but I am pleased with the final look.

I had to lengthen the dress slightly as my toile was definitely too short. I added on about 15 cm onto the bottom. I made my dress following all of these steps in my final fabric, now I'm jut waiting to fit my dress to hem it and face it around the collar.

Toile Diary; Trousers

I firstly started off patterning my trousers by tracing off a simple trouser block. I used some toiled trousers that had been made for us to use and placed them on the mannequin with legs, this was very helped as I could measure and pin into place exactly how I wanted my trousers to look and fit, so that's what I did.

From my pinning and measurements, I worked out that I was going to take off a cm at the lower hips, 2cm at the knee and 3cm at the bottom off each side.

I then had to change the top of the trousers to fit my design. I adapted each side of the trouser leg to make each one angle out a lot more, I also added on the triangular waist and seams.

I then drew out my final patterns, I had the top part and bottom part of the back and front legs, and nothing was cut on the fold so a 1cm seam allowance was added onto everything all the way around.

I started off by firstly sewing in the darts, this was probably the hardest part of the trousers as I was sewing half of the dart on one piece and the other half on the other piece, so making sure the darts matched up perfectly was tough.

I then sewed the two top halves to the two bottom halves on the front and back pieces with a 1cm seam allowance and very carefully making sure I matched up all of the darts.

Then I went on to sew together the center front seams of the back and front pieces with a 1cm seam allowance.

The next thing I did was place in the zip at the side. Here I used a closed end short zip. Upon reflection of how the zip looked I'm thinking of maybe using a concealed zip on my final garment, only because I don't think the zip shows up enough or is big enough or placed where it can look like some obvious detail, so I am thinking it would look better if it was just concealed.

Then all I had to do was sew down the outside leg of the garment and then the inside leg, making sure I use a 1cm seam allowance.

This is how my final trousers look;

I am pleased with the final outcome and I am saving the hemming and facing for my final garment.

I made the trousers out of my final garments following these steps. I am leaving the facing and hemming until I have fitted the trousers onto my model, but I have prepared the facings and ironed it onto inter facing ready to attach it on.

Toile Diary; Long Skirt

Long Skirt;

The shape of my long skirt will be very tight fitted  but stretchy. I started off by tracing off a basic skirt block.

I then made only a few slight alterations, I took out all of the darts, the 2 at the back and the one at the front by measuring the length of the darts and then taking that off the length of the skirt at the top. I did this on both sides and then added about another 30 cm onto the bottom to make the length of the skirt ankle length. I didn't take any of the skirt in at the bottom yet as I am going to do that and measure it properly when I have made the skirt at the skirt is going to be very tight fitted at the bottom around the ankles.

I then made sure I used some stretchy lycra material as that is what I will be using to create my final garment, so I then cut out my 2 pieces, each front and back piece were cut on the fold and as the garment was supposed to be stretchy and very tight fitting so just the one front and back piece was all that was required, no zips or seams or splits.

I then put my 2 pieces of the skirt together.

After sewing the front and back piece together with a normal sewing machine and foot, I realized that I probably should have overlocked the two pieces together rather than sewing them together, as the lycra was that stretchy and it would have to be stretched to be put on, it might not hold with just a normal sewing line so I think on my final garment I will overlock it together just to be sure.

I then patterned for a waistband, I did this by measuring the length of the top of the front and back piece, adding them together and then deciding I want my waistband to be about 3cm, I drew an oblong the length of the front and back waist added up and at 6cm wide. I also added on a 1 cm seam allowance on each side.

I then cut it out of the fabric andfolded it over, I then overlocked the two sides together with a 1cm seam allowance so that the piece was folded over the show the 3cm band and was attached at each end to make a circle. I then pinned it onto the top of my garment, making sure that where I had sewn the waistband together  met the seam where I had sewn the skirt together.

I then overlocked the waistband onto the garment. I really liked the effect of the waistband and I will definitely use this type of finish on my final garment, although I realized after I'd sewn the waistband on that I had sewn it on inside out and the seam was showing on the right side, next time on my final garment I will make sure I don't do this.

The finish I will do at the bottom for my final garment I only managed to do on a sample piece as the machine wasn't working properly, this is the simple final I want at the bottom of my garment;

I think that this is a really nice and simple way of finishing a garment, especially a long skirt and as my material is going to be stretchy I think it will be a very simple yet effective way of finishing the bottom and compliment the material and garment very well.

CAD

This was a creative session we did on cad to try and get a feel for the different tools and what they did.

The tools we used were the black and white arrow, the transform tool, we imported a nature picture onto our work using the window-symbol library-nature method, we added a filter to the image using the filter-distort-pucker and bloat method, we added text with the type tool, changed the font to our liking, went into the character dialog box and selected the spiral tool to spiral our text and played around with layers using the layer tool.

This was a really helpful exercise as it helped us to gain some experience of using the different tools that cad had to offer, it also helped us to get some ideas for our fashion posters and how we wanted those to look.