design observed :: day 7

Whoa! I was getting ahead of myself! Yesterday I said we'd go to cutting today.  But there are still a couple of things to consider before our scissors get their first bite.

Layout

Since we don't have a commercial pattern, with its handy layout diagrams, we'll have to decide on the layout ourselves.  No magic here, just moving the pieces around until they fit.  Here's a layout diagram for our project:

Here's where our list of pattern pieces comes in handy.  We can just go down the list and put each piece in there, moving them around where they'll fit best.  The layout sketch above would work very nicely if we were using a zipper in the center back seam.  But since we're using a continuous bound placket, the center back can be placed on the fold, eliminating a seam. So I'll move the dress back piece onto the fabric fold below the dress front piece, and fill in the others in the space that's left. 

All this moving of pattern pieces brings up another important point.

Grainline

There is, of course, a lengthwise and crosswise grain in every fabric.  "Lengthwise" is from cut end to cut end, "crosswise" runs from selvage to selvage.  In woven fabrics (like the corduroy we're using) the lengthwise grain is going to be the most stable.  As in, the least apt to stretch.  But the crosswise usually has a little give.  So it makes sense that you'd want the crosswise grain, with its little bit of give, to go around the body, and the lengthwise, which will hold its shape, to go up and down.

There are a couple of notable exceptions: When using a border print, which is printed with a pretty border design down the selvage, the pattern pieces have to be placed on the crosswise grain for the border to fall at the hem.  Bias cut garments are cut at a 45 degree angle to the selvage, either for a nice drape or a particular look.  (Such as diagonal stripes.)

So we've decided we want the pattern pieces oriented vertically along our fabric, but we have to remember...

Nap

Any fabric that has a "pile", or in other words, isn't flat, such as corduroy, velvet, etc., has a "nap".  If we were to flip the pattern piece for our dress back upside down on our layout up there, the front of the dress would look a slightly different color than the back when we're finished.  So we lay them all out with their tops pointing in the same direction. 

Incidentally, I read somewhere that the "correct" way to cut out corduroy garments is with the nap running up the garment.  So that it lays down only if you rub upward on the fabric.  "Correct", of course, is relative.  It does help you to remember which way is up if you always do it the same way. 

Estimating yardage

Now that we understand grainline and nap and we've got our layout all sketched up, it's only a matter of adding up the longest lengths to decide how much fabric we need.  Adding all of the pattern piece lengths in our drawing up there, I came up with roughly 60".  However, since we're uncertain whether we want the pleated panel to be 18", like I've got it on the layout, or up to three inches longer, I'm going to add three inches to be safe.  With very expensive fabrics, or if you're limited to a certain amount of fabric, you'll probably want to make these decisions before cutting. 

I find that 63" is 1.75 yards.  If I were ordering fabric, I'd go ahead and round up to 2 yards, unless, of course, it's something expensive.  Since I have a bolt of corduroy, that's how much I'll cut off and prewash. 

Whew! That was a lot of words for a couple of simple concepts.  I'm off to prewash, and then we'll start cutting.

Again, questions?

~Erin~

design observed :: day 6

Happy Monday!

To continue with the drafting of our pattern for our green and brown pleat-panel dress, we look back at our list.  We remember there are seven steps to drafting a pattern, and here they are again:

1) Waist

2) Armhole/Sleeve

3) Neckline

4) Closure

5) Style Lines

6) Skirt

7) Seam and Hem Allowance

At this point, we've completed the first two steps and have enough of a pattern to make an A-line dress with a straight sleeve. 

Today we start with Step 3.

Neckline

The basic patterns are designed with a jewel neckline, which is a round neckline right up against the base of the neck.  I almost always lower the neckline when making a round neckline.  So, for our neckline today, we tape the shoulder seams together and make the marks at center front, shoulder seam, and center back where we want the neckline to fall.

I've taken off 3/4" at the center front, and 1/2" at shoulder and center back.  Then we connect the lines to make a pretty round neckline.  Cut the extra off.  I often find that although it may be a little tough to make the perfect curvy line you're looking for with a pencil, your scissors can do it more smoothly.  So draw the neckline as a guide, then let your scissors smooth it out.  

Now we need to make the collar. 

We take a separate sheet of paper and trace the neckline, shoulder seam, and armhole on it.

Mark everything so you don't get it turned around.

Now we take our collar paper and draw the collar on it.  I've made marks 2" from the neckline at the shoulder, center back, and center front.  Connect the lines to draw your collar. 

Then draw the center front and center back of your collar.  This is whatever you think will look nice.  It helps to hang the paper over your hand and try to visualize what the collar will look like when worn.  It also helps to squint a little. 

You'll notice that I've drawn the Center Back mark 1/4" away from the bodice center back mark.  This is because I'm planning to use a continuous bound placket as the closure, and will need 1/4" on each side of the bodice center back to fit it in.  This is where the order of the steps becomes a little fluid.  I needed to decide on the closure in order to do the collar. 

Collars, of course, are explained in more detail in the collar styles lesson on the lessons page.  This one is a completely flat, no-roll, split Peter Pan collar. 

Closure

We've just discussed the closure.  We just need to remember to include a pattern piece for it when we're all through drafting. 

Style Lines

These are the non-functional seams that we use to, say, change fabric color in the middle of a pattern piece, insert ruffles or tucks somewhere, or insert a pleated panel in the front of our dress.

We take the dress front and fiddle with it until we get what we want in the way of style lines. 

At first, I drew a line straight down through the dart to the hemline.  Then I thought, that might make for a skimpy pleat panel, so I moved the line a couple of inches over to the left.  But then I remembered we have to put a tab across the top, and a very long tab is going to look a little funny.  So I opted for the down-the-dart line again.  I tried a couple of places for the top of the panel, and ended up going with a below-the-waist line.  I may change that.  I'm not sure I like it. 

At any rate, when we've decided where we want the panel to be, we'll cut that out.  We could keep that pattern piece, cut it into vertical strips and tape it to larger paper to make our pleated panel, but since it is a rectangle, I think we can just measure the top of the opening and multiply it by three.  (Pleats take three times the fabric of a finished pleated panel.) 

Skirt

This is a step that we'd use if we were doing a yoke style or a princess style cut off at the waist.  Since we're doing A-line, we'll skip this step.

Seam and Hem Allowance

This seems like a tedious step, now that we've finished all our designing and drafting, but it's so very important not to skip it.  You'll think you'll lay your pattern piece down on the fabric and cut an even seam allowance around it when you get to the cutting stage, but you won't.  You'll cut right along the seamline and gasp.  And move the pattern piece and start over.  Trust me. :)

So take the time to do this step.  Anywhere where the paper has been cut off at the seamline, tape the pattern piece to larger paper and draw in your seam allowances.  Then write what each pattern piece is, how many to cut, and what the seam allowance is.  Also include grainline.  The grainline on the collar piece should be parallel with the bodice center back.  (I'll go back and write that on there.) 

As far as hem goes, since the hem isn't straight, it will probably be easiest just to do a hem facing.  For that pattern piece, I'll just cut off the bottom two inches of the bodice front and back pattern after I've cut them out of the fabric. 

Now that we've completed all the steps, a pattern piece roll call:

Bodice front

Bodice back

Collar

Sleeve

Pleated panel

Hem facing

Placket

And that's it.  We'll start cutting next time and begin to see our creation come together.  Questions?

~Erin~

design observed :: day 5

Now that we've got a pretty specific idea of what we want, we go to drafting. 

First, catch the child you're sewing for and measure her around the chest.  Usually I have her pull up her shirt, so I don't add in her clothing, but since I'm measuring over her clothes this time, I pulled the tape pretty tight.

She's 23" in the chest, so I'm going to use a size 5 basic bodice pattern. 

When we print out the basic bodice pattern file (minus the first page, which is just a cover and will only waste your printer ink) we get this:

A bodice front, a bodice back, the bottoms of the front and back, (since they won't fit on one page on sizes 5 and up) and a sleeve.  You'll notice that the sleeve is incomplete.  It also won't fit on one page.

The patterns, by the way, have a 10% wearing ease built in, which just means they aren't the exact size/shape of the child, they're the shape plus room to breathe, bend over, etc. 

In order to get our printed pattern ready to draft with, we match the bodice front and back bottoms to the tops and glue or tape them.  Then we tape the sleeve to a longer piece of paper and extend the underarm seams to the measurement shown on the pattern.  When we've done that, we have this:

Now we can begin to make the design we've thought up into a pattern we can use to create it. 

There are seven basic steps when drafting a pattern.  We don't always have to use every step, they don't always have to be done in this order, but having a checklist ensures we don't forget anything. Here they are:

1) Waist

2) Armhole/Sleeve

3) Neckline

4) Closure

5) Style Lines

6) Skirt

7) Seam and Hem Allowance

Today we'll work on the first two. 

Waist

Here's where we decide whether we'll use A-line, yoke, or princess styles, and do what it takes to make the silhouette happen.  We've chosen A-line, so first we determine the length.  I always measure length  from the inner shoulder seam, near the neck. 

Then we do this:

This is described in detail in the A-line styles lesson, but basically we extend the length of the front and back, then extend the side seams to add width at the hem.  When you're finished, the side seams of the front and back need to be the same length. Since our style will have the pleated panel in the front, we don't need to add a great deal of width at the hem to allow for movement.  I've added 2" on each side. 

Armhole/Sleeve

The basic patterns are designed for use with a sleeve, so no alteration of the armhole is necessary. 

We decided to use a bell sleeve, but since we're going to put a trim a few inches up from the sleeve hem, I don't think we'll flare it too much.  We'll take the basic sleeve pattern, which we extended earlier, and just straighten the underarm seam, like this:

This will give us a straight sleeve that's roomier at the hem than our basic tapered sleeve. 

And we'll work on our pattern some more on Monday.  See you then!

~Erin~

design observed :: day 4

I think I've mentioned before that one of the best places to buy fabric is at the thrift store.  I mean, I was refashioning when refashioning wasn't yet fashionable.  (I'm not sure what that means for me.  I'll have to think about that later.)

I happened to be in there today, with a swatch of our green corduroy in my pocket, and I found this chocolate brown moleskin skirt:

That I thought might help tame our wild-child green.  Also, last night as I was falling asleep I came up with another crazy idea.  What if we replaced the pleated panel with a gathered panel in a softer fabric, and put the tab below the top of it?  Then, for continuity, we could use the same fabric for the collar.  Or to bind the collar.  Or to bind the collar and the sleeves.  Or as a little bitty ruffle at the bottom of the sleeves. 

With that in mind, I offer you two (more) design sketches:

a has the gathered contrast panel, and b is our old pleated friend with brown accents.  Now that we put the brown on the collar and tab, though, the sleeves look a touch plain.  Suggestions? 

The buttons are yellow because I have a couple of little gold-and-silver-tone buttons for the tab:

That I think will set off our tailored coat look. 

Okay, your turn.  Which way do we go?

~Erin~

design observed :: day 3

We're coming closer now to a clear idea of what we want with our green-corduroy-vintage-coat-dress project.  Another design sketch:

What we've decided is this:

-A-line
-Knee length
-Round neckline
-Pointed Peter Pan collar
-Bell sleeve
-Two-button tab
-Pleated panel in front, starting above the natural waist

As we moved toward a tailored, back-to-school type of look, it occurred to me that this little bit of blue-plaid rickrack might match:

So the red lines in the sketch above are a question for us.  Do we want to use the blue-plaid rickrack around the edge of a green collar, like a little scalloped edge?  Do we want to use it around the sleeves, and if so, at the bottom, as on the left sleeve, or up the sleeve a bit as on the right?  If we use it as at left, it'll look like scallops, if on the right, it'll look like, well, rickrack. 

Or, do we want to avoid the rickrack altogether and go for a plain white collar? 

Once we get these final things figured out, it's on to drafting a pattern!

I'm loving your comments.  Thanks so much for playing along!

~Erin~