pattern making 101: part deux

Friday means....Saturday. 

To make a flared skirt out of a straight skirt pattern, it involves closing darts on the waistline, and we'll basically be doing to same thing as we did on the bodice, in that we'll make a "dart" on the hemline, but not sew it like a dart. 

Stay with me. 

To start, cut a slit from the hemline (red) to the tip of one of the skirt darts. Then, cut on one of the legs of the dart starting at the waistline to the tip (blue).  DO NOT cut through and make two pieces out of the skirt pattern. You have to make a little hinge at the tip of the dart so that you can close the dart.

Then, you will close the dart with the help of the hing. The pattern will automatically add flare to itself as the red line opens. The dart will overlap itself.

As you can see below, the skirt opens up, making a flare. This space will be filled with more pattern paper. 

You can stop here, or make even more flare! Do you dare?

You do the same thing as above with the other dart on a skirt (but if the skirt pattern you have only has one dart, don't pretend a dart and cut it, because then the waist won't fit). 

 

Looks simple enough, right? I hope so. Again, if anyone does this with a pattern, email me your pics and I'll feature you on Sewn and you will also get a free headband in the mail!

keep reading, because next time will be all about cutting out your fashion fabric with your now customized pattern pieces!

Pattern Making 101

Look at me being a good blogger and actually posting how-tos! 

For my snake dress, I'll be posting every single step I take in order for you to really see what goes into sewing a dress from scratch. Get excited, and be sure to have a diet coke, because this will be a lot of work.

Last night I started tracing my slopers and making the patterns. Making a custom pattern involves slashing a basic pattern and moving around and closing darts, adding fullness or making yokes, in order for a real style to be created. 

All patterns, even from a pattern shop, start with a basic sloper in a particular size, and the move from there to become a style. So, if you have slopers, you can really make any pattern you could ever dream of 

(unless you drape your clothing, which is a whole other post. Actually a whole other blog, since i really don't know you to drape). (draping is what they do on project runway, more or less). 

So, with my particualr style in mind, I started by making Princess Seams. I have never made a pattern with princess seams as of yet, so this should be interesting. 

Making seams in a pattern starts with taking out the darts completely and using them to create a seam. If you think about it, there are two darts in basic bodice front that point to the center of the bust. If you make the darts long enough to touch, you create a seam, making the garment fit better and more "couture" like. 

So to move around the darts, I start by making a cut in my pattern peice from wherever I want the new dart to be, to the bust center. 

Princess seams can either start in the arm hole, or at the shoulder. Since I am doing a yoke on this dress (as seen in the sketch), I wanted the dart to end at the bottom of the yoke going up towards the shoulder. So I made a slash from the shoulder after I had already cut out the yoke part from the bodice (this isn't pictured because I messed up and forgot to cut out the yoke before hand. I fixed it, dont worry). So now that I have slash, I have to decide which dart I am going to move. Obviously I want to keep the waist dart because, well, that's how princess seams are made. So I moved to side seam dart. 

Once I made that slash, I "closed" the dart completely and the new dart is formed. As you can see, the side seam dart is completely closed and has overlapped itself. It's like I made a giant pie piece with the slashes and just moved the piece until the new dart was formed.

I hope I haven't lost you yet. Continuing on.(I feel like Perez Hilton painting on these pictures).

All that is left is joining the darts together by drawing the tips up to touch, making two separate bodice pieces.

All pattern pieces need seam allowances as well (5/8" is pretty standard). And then you're done! This really can be done with any sort of pattern with a bodice. It will probably take some altering once I get sewing to fit over my bust just right, but that's pretty standard when you make your own patterns. 

If anyone tries this with a pattern and emails me with pics, I'm sending you a headband. Plus you'll be featured on sewn by ellen! Get sewing, people! 

Tomorrow I'll be posting about making a flared skirt.

The capstone saga.

this is what i have to show after about 120 hours of work: an almost perfect fitting bodice for my evening gown capstone project. I had to fulfill about 120 hours of work to pass the class, and I never imagined the I wouldn't even have a completed dress after all those hours. I was dreaming of going to the Salt Lake Opera and get my hair done and possibly have some fancy-shmancy photos taken of me, and it looks like that wont happen for awhile. the Doc doesn't think the bottom half of the dress will be as hard as the bodice was (since i have two different sized breasts, lopsided shoulders, and an apparent hunch-back-mound of muscle in my back that the Doc discovered. very sexy).

I have received several emails from girls asking me to make a wedding dress for their big day, and I say "NO! please, no!" every time because I know how hard formal wear is now. My 14 year-old sister is lucky that i'm willing to make her wedding dress in (hopefully) 20 years. I hope she doesn't have the freak of nature body that I have. 

The best thing that came out of this project are my slopers. Because of them, all the dress on this blog were able to be created. Slopers are pattern templates of my body with all their obscurities built into them so that i don't have to do the same alterations for each outfit over and over. alterations become minimal each time, saving me time and patience. not only that, but i learned A TON.

The first 35 hours or so went toward making the fit dress, which is just a basic straight skirt with bodice and long sleeves. This is what I use to make the basic slopers, to then make the fun patterns. As you can see, I went through two different sleeves for my left arm since, once again, I'm a freak of nature. 

 

I started on a fit dress in advanced sewing, but since my evening gown was going to be fitted, I had to completley start over almost. Here is the second fit dress I made when the Doc and I finally realized that there were more issues going on than we had seen in advanced sewing. 

Once I had that done, I made my slopers, which took about 2 hours, with which I made the evening gown pattern. That is still being tweeked to this day. This is the first muslin I made of the actual gown:

 Altering this darn muslin took the next 40 hours of work. however, muslin is totally different than the actual black silk suiting i had decided on, so all of the alterations still continued. Was this muslin mock up kind of pointless? yes. But i would rather learn and practice my design on cheap-o muslin rather than $11/yard silk metallic.

The last 40 hours of hell were spent on the bodice, pictured above. I really hope i can finish this evening gown soon, but for now I need a break. I've got a snake dress to make, a chair to recover, and a graduation coming up. Time for that vacation? hardly. 

To just rub it in some more, my log book for the hours. take it in, people:

where are you pattern paper?

I need to finish my evening gown. I need to start on my snake dress. did I mention i have finals next week? The BYU bookstore still hasn't received my 12 rolls of pattern paper I ordered. I need these to start and finish everything, BYU bookstore!

I am getting my hair died tomorrow, however. I had a nightmare last night that my ash brown roots that are growing in were a bright blond. I think I need a vacation.

As I promised

Here is my next dress design:

The snakes on the skirt wrap around me and then there is the snake on the neck. All will be done with pearls.  The skirt has four knife pleats with a slight a-line. Hits at natural waist.

I need real drawing markers. I feel like a kindergartner designing clothes sometimes. "That's so good Ellen! Stay inside the lines!" 

My dad uses the prismacolors as an architect, and gosh darnit I need them too!

Hot Trend: Snakes!

Breezing through my april issue of Lucky magazine, I found this picture of Emma Watson, wearing a snake applique t-shirt, and feel in love. I adore new trends like these, that bring an edge of rock and roll to clothing while still staying sweet. My next dress will be based on this trend, and I'm really excited because I haven't done a lot of edgy stuff... simply because I haven't found my edginess yet. But the snakes are speaking to me, and the next dress will be postpartum friendly with an exposed zipper down center front. 

My husband hasn't set up our scanner yet since we moved, so I'll have to describe my design to you through the written word. 

Imagine: Black stretch cotton suiting (used in the skirt of my shabby-apple dress) used for the entire dress. a big, black exposed zipper down center front, pleated elbow length sleeves, and a big neck yoke (like in Cassandra). Then, for the punch of rock and roll, while still being sweet, a pearl-applique snake that wraps around the neck yoke! Pearl snakes! HOW AWESOME. around the skirt hem would be two more snakes that lay on the side seams, as if they are slithering in a big circle, also in pearl details. Pearl snakes, stretch cotton suiting, and an exposed zipper? i think i have found my edge. 

I hope i haven't scared anyone with the snakes. I promise it will be cool. To prove it i'll make my husband plug in the scanner so I can post the drawing tonight.

more snake trends:

All of this space is mine.

An entire room. I don't have to vacum up scraps every half hour, nor do I have to put away the ironing board. I can put all my fabric in drawers and shut closet doors instead of having it piled all over my desk. If there is anything that makes you feel like a grown-up and a college grad, which I will be in three months, it is moving into an apartment that can actually function as a home for more than a year's time. 

Steve and I plan on living here for two year's at least. This will be our last apartment before we consider buying a house. 

All these ammenities are in walking distance to my place:

 Target

Chipotle

Noodles

Paradise Bakery

Greek food

Wells Fargo

Bar-b-q food

Jordan River Trail

And just a hop, skip, jump away is Yellow Bird Fabrics. 

  Easter blessings continue to flourish.

New Sewing Room

Steve and I made the big leap this week: we moved from our 400 sq ft apartment in Provo to a 974 sq ft apartment in Sandy. The space is incredible.

I get my own sewing room with this move. Our second bedroom will be filled with these drawers from Ikea for all my fabric and supplies as I start my own clothing line to be sold on Etsy starting this summer. I love organization! I'll probably need about 5 whole drawer sets to fit everything.

If I could find my camera in boxes of junk that I haven't unpacked yet, I would post a picture of my 10x12 sewing room that doesn't have to be shared with anyone else, nor our dining room table or couch. it's all mine!

Right now I'm marveling at how I can walk around my bed in the bedroom without having to balance on one foot. It's amazing.

Easter blessings, I tell ya.