5 posts tagged “sewing”

This is the book I looked at this weekend. 

I coughed up $85 to buy this book, it was one of the more expensive in print books I have bought. I figured it would put me on the right track because, if you are paying attention you can tell that the draping book I already own is written by the same woman. And I always did kind of wonder why we used a draping book written by one person and a drafting book written by another. Of course, I guess that writing a draping book doesn't mean you are qualified to write a drafting book.

Anyway this book is a flat patterning book. It includes many, many blocks, various bodice blocks, several different pants blocks and block for knits, just to name a few. The book appears to be very straightforward, explaining things step by step and even including construction techniques and other information not generally included in patterning books. It looks like it will be a good reference for me and would be a good guide for a person who is learning on their own without the help of a teacher/mentor. As a book to teach and practice with I think I prefer Apparel Making for Fashion Design even with its quirks, because of its layout for a classroom setting. You can see many different designs all based on one technique on one page, you can see how they are related and have students do the different alterations and share.

At times I found the illustrations to not be as clear as I would have liked, but there are a lot of illustrations and I guess too many is better than not enough. I also don't like that the seam allowance is marked on the illustrations, I think it gets in the way.  While there are many slopers/blocks to build the measurements you use to build them and the instructions for drafting the block are intertwined. Which is good, if you need step by step instructions the first time you create a sloper, but if you are going to do many I would prefer to have a page where you calculate all your measurements then instructions that say "take such-and-such measurement", so I look on my measurement sheet to find "such-and-such" and plug it in instead of following directions and calculating measurements at the same time. I have decided to do a test on how well various basic slopers come out. I haven't started yet, but I went to measure my dress form and without going through the steps I didn't know what measurements I needed! Which is terribly unhelpful because I don't even know what measurements I need before I start drafting the block!

Besides having a section on knits from t-shirts to leotards and underwear another interesting part of this book is that it has instructions for a custom dress form that is better (more useful) than just wrapping yourself in duct tape (which you can't pin), even creating a base for it to stand on.

The simple clear instructions, drafts, sections on knits and pants, and helpful construction and other techniques make this book worth it for me. I may recommend it to students, but at $85-$95 I don't think I would require it. However, this book could be excellent for someone starting out sewing and learning to pattern, who doesn't have a teacher/mentor. It is a lot of money, but you wouldn't be paying for a class! And the custom dress form is just cool. The book is also spiral bound so it lays flat when you use it.

I am currently in search of patterning books. Since I have been looking at them I thought I would share my impressions. I have two books that were required for a class and those have been sufficient for general purposes, now historical patterns are a completely different matter. Since I work in theater I will refer to the person you are making clothing for as "the actor".

First of all there are two ways to create patterns, draping and drafting/flat patterning. Draping uses a dress form that is the same shape as the person you are making clothing for. You use muslin to "drape" the pattern onto the dress form. Then you take your muslin pieces and trace them onto paper, giving you a pattern. Drafting or flat patterning you use measurements to create a sloper or body block of the actor. A sloper is a basically a fitted bodice. Once you have  your sloper you alter it to make the design and style changes you need. There are somethings that are more easily done by draping and some more easily done by drafting. Generally you draft sleeves, collars, pants and items for men, you drape bodices for women. I draft skirts, but depending on what you are doing and how you feel about each method you could drape them.

My search for books comes from the fact that I am looking for a good sloper/body block draft to use, I haven't really needed one for women because we had a collection of dress forms, but that has changed. I am also kind of looking at books for if no WHEN I am asked to teach a class I want to know what books to require. Patterning books are expensive! And I don't have any problem requiring expensive books for class, IF they are worth the price. I wouldn't want book costs to be prohibitive, but they really are necessary and would pay for themselves if the student wanted to continue on with patterning, for costume construction, or personal projects.

Here are the two books that were used in my class, I would recommend both, but the thing to remember is that I was taking a class with a teacher, who taught. We used the book to follow the steps for drafting, draping, pattern alterations, whatever, we didn't use it to learn from. So I haven't really read these books, I just used the information in them.

This is a draping book, using muslin to create a pattern on a dress form. This is not what I am looking for now, because as I said without dress forms, draping isn't really useful. However, this is the book I used to learn, and it works.

This is the flat patterning book we used. I like it, but again that could be because it is the one I was taught with. Of course it has some quirks, the pattern marks are different, some of the measurements are in 8ths of an inch, but I like the layout. The skirt sloper I use is from this book, of course there probably aren't very many differences is skirt slopers. Again, we didn't read the book, just used the information to make different designs, move darts and the like.

Stage one is done, the whole project is complete.Newest photos first, then process photos. I didn't have a full length mirror when I was fine tuning the pattern so I was very excited when I wore the dress out and was in Target I found a full length mirror. The dress (and the mirror) makes me look tall and very skinny.

Since I have also been making headbands I used a scrap piece of fabric to make one to match the dress

At the fabric store I found some fabric that spoke to me, so the challenge was to come up with a pattern for it. It was actually the same fabric in different colors as this apron I made for a swap. I really liked how the contrasting bias looked so I knew I wanted that to be an element. After some sketching I came up with this for my design

There is contrast bias along the yoke edges, armhole and neckline. I like the look of the gathered bust, but found that generally this style is done with halter tops and I didn't want to do that because I want to be able to wear my everyday bra. The skirt is gored with A-line flare. I draped it one afternoon on my lunch break.
This is "Part 1" because I have only finished the mock up. It is however a finished mock up because as I was draping this dress I found out about the Burda Style Design and Pattern Competition and dcided to enter. I was already patterning a garment...so why not?

My last year of college I got to take a tailoring class. We designed, patterned and built our own women's suit based on the L-85 war production board's fabric limitations during WWII. It was my first tailoring class and our university was on the quarter system so we had ten weeks to do it all. Later I took more classes in tailoring, it was just tailoring from commercial patterns and we had 15 weeks, which felt like a breeze because there was no designing or patterning! This suit was built for the costume department's stock.

Years ago I found the Lil' Devil Baby Hat I really wanted to make, but everyone I knew that was pregnant or had babies would NOT have appreciated it. More likely they would have been insulted. Last year I met a couple that was pregnant and I was pretty sure they would find the humor in the hat. I asked anyway and they had no problem with it. So I also made a little red bunting to complete the outfit, oh and a strawberry hat because I wanted to make one of those too and had red yarn left over.

Anyway I was at the fabric store the other day and patterns were on sale, so I bought Simplicity 4243
to make something else for the baby. Keeping in line with parents who appreciate a devil baby hat I looked for some fun fabric and found a fabric with a bandanna print and another fabric that was a bandanna like print, but instead of paisleys and squiggles it had skulls and spiked lines.

I used the skull fabric as accent, for the band of the hat and bottom of the dress and for the panties. Also I added a skull pocket and everything is trimmed with black rick-rack. I like using unexpected and inappropriate fabrics, in a subtle way, on first glance you might not notice the skulls, but they are there. It is still appropriate for a girl, but it takes it out of the "cutesy" realm.  I also like using elements like rick-rack that would generally make the item more "girly" in an unexpected way. The pocket got skinny because I didn't center the skull very well and it looked unbalanced, it's more for accent anyway, but now it looks like it is for the "connected" baby, because it cellphone/ipod size.

I am also working on a little romper from the same pattern, which is now a bit disappointing because it is not at all edgy like the dress. But it is almost like gingham (you probably can't see, but it is tiny yellow squares with white outlines) and cherries, which seem popular now and almost rockabilly or something. But if you have any ideas to make it more edgy.

Half of romper