Draft a Skirt with Godets March 21, 2007

 If you want to make a 6 panel skirt with godets but do not have a pattern, you can use your straight skirt pattern to make a new pattern.

For example I drafted a straight skirt with a side zipper. This skirt pattern example is 70 cm ( 27,5 inches) long and I want to add godets with a length of 35 cm ( about 14 inches) and a hem wide of 20 cm ( 8 inches).

You should trace your straight skirt pattern and divide the skirt front and back pattern by 3, marking a line 1/3 the width away from the center front and center back panels on your pattern (see the drawing below).

Mark the desired godet length on the panels and side seams.

Move the waist darts towards the panel seams.

Mark on the pattern: center front on fold, center back on fold, side front part and back side part . This will help you to see which is which if you cut the pattern pieces. You can use scotch tape and label each cut piece.

The new panel skirt pattern looks like this example,

The new panel skirt pattern parts,

Drafting a godet is easy.

Start with a vertical line which indicates the length of the godet. The length I used here is 35 cm ( about 14 inches) Mark the beginning and end of the length.

I used a width of 20 cm( ( 8 inches) so I marked 10 cm ( 4 inches) to the left and 10 cm ( 4 inches) to the right from the base line length.

From the start of the baseline which is on top, measure the length you want I used 35 cm ( nearly 14 inches) and draw a new diagonal line towards the marking 1/2 width point  at 10 cm (4 inches). Do the same for the other side. Now you need to mark the hemline which is not a straight one. You can use your measuring tape and hold it steady at the top and move the tape between the lines marking dots every 2,5 cm.( 1 inch) which you then connect .

If you want to sew the godets as insets then you can use the finished draft godet and cut this 6 times because it should be sewn at the panel seams.( front side , side and back side)

If you want to line your skirt you can use the same pattern but with some minor changes ( it is not necessary to use all the godets, a few will do to give your lining skirt enough walking ease)  Since I am making this skirt from a semi sheer fabric I used the same traced pattern but I do not want to sew the panels to avoid see-through from the panel seams. I connected the traced skirt patterns next to each other and added only a half godet ( folded on the grain line) at the side seam at front and back pattern.I redrew a bit of the side seam just above the half godet for a more fluid line. 

 

The only thing that needs to be done now is adding seam allowances to the pattern parts and you can make your 6 panel godet skirt. Another option is to make the skirt with cut-on godets instead of the separate godets.

Add seam allowances and you are done.

Enjoy your new pattern.

Adjusting for a Full Bust on a Wrap Top March 9, 2007

If you’re like many women, the standard B-cup of most commercial patterns isn’t enough to, ah, cover your bits without unsightly pulls and wrinkles. But with the popularity of wrap tops and DVF-style wrap dresses, there are some small but significant pattern changes you need to make so your entire bodice fits well. Let’s have a look.

The other day, I made Simplicity’s top, 4076. It has a great mock wrap with ruching at the side. In order to fit properly, you have to adjust for a full bust, not only on the actual bustline of each front pattern piece, but also on the wrap piece that extends under the bust on the other side. This is a fairly straightforward change, but it’s one that many people leave off, giving a happy-hands-at-home look to their garments.

The first thing you need to do is your standard full-bust-adjustment, or FBA. There are many excellent tutorials for how to adjust a pattern out there. Sewing Diva Gigi has a great one on her blog. I won’t bother to repeat what has already been said so well.

This will leave you with enough room over your bust on the primary side of your pattern piece. However, if you look at the picture of the un-adjusted pattern piece (on the left), laid on top of the adjusted pattern piece, you’ll see that the side seams don’t match:

.

Even if you do a FBA on both sides, when you line up the center fronts, you’ll find that the side seams are out of alignment, and this will cause distortion when you wear it. To fix this, lay your pattern pieces over one another, lining the center fronts up. Using a clear gridded ruler, trace a line over the slash line for your FB adjusted pattern piece, as shown:



Slash your pattern piece along that line, all the way from the top to, but not through, the bottom. Spread it so that it matches the spread on your FBA adjusted piece:

.

Repeat this whole process on the other side. Once you are done, you will have two pattern pieces that have two sets of slashes for the bust, and your top will fit great!

The finished result will be free of unsightly pulls and gaps, and will fall gracefully across the body.
I used this method on my Simplicity wrap top with great results.

Happy sewing!

Raglan Sleeve Cap Height Alteration Tutorial January 19, 2007

Some readers have asked how to make the alteration to a raglan sleeve that needs more cap height.

I used the sleeve from Vogue pattern 8146 that Mary Beth used in Critique by Els Muslin by Mary Beth

If a raglan sleeve shows diagonal wrinkles it needs more cap height. You can alter the pattern and add the amount you need to fill up this shortage of length which causes the diagonal wrinkles.

To measure how much sleeve cap height you need to add,(see diagonal sleeve wrinkles) undo the basting from the underarm sleeve and move the sleeve upwards with one hand ( higher at armpit) until you notice that the diagonal wrinkles are gone. Measure the amount you moved the sleeve upwards, from the stitch line at armpit towards the stitch line at sleeve underarm.

Mary Beth sent me a picture of the sleeve pattern she used,

I traced the pattern picture to use as an example for the alteration and marked the seam allowances,

Draw a line from the notch at the front and back sleeve arm scye towards the shoulder stitch line notch which indicates the end of the shoulder. Removed the seam allowances at the upper part of the sleeve pattern .

Slash the line from the shoulder notch towards the notch at arm scye back and front and add the amount you need,

You can see how the added length for the sleeve cap height differs from the original used pattern.

The red line shows the new altered raglan sleeve pattern, the blue line is the original one. The straight of grain needs to be lenghtened for the upper part as well as adding the seam allowances back on.

Progress on the Laura Bennett Dress - design decisions January 1, 2007

After celebrating New Years with my family and Sewing Diva Phyllis and her brood at a local hotel, I got back to work on the Laura Bennett dress. Since the bulk of our New Years celebrating was spent by the indoor pool watching our kids swim, eating pizza and drinking wine out of plastic cups, I didn’t sweat finishing it for the countdown to 2007. But Diva Phyllis (and hopefully Diva Gigi) and I are converging on New York City later this month, and I need a fabulous dress for dinner on that trip. Plus, I’m going to a trade show in Las Vegas in April, and I want to bring this to that.

Back to the dress. The neckline on the dress as designed is quite wide:.

I don’t have any problem with that, but I would like to be able to wear a non-strapless bra underneath it. So I widened the front shoulder piece by 5/8 inch, and I thought that it might be nice to add some lace trim to the neckline as well. It can cover a multitude of sins, and gives a little more leeway for bra straps without weighting down the look of the dress. I had some really nice yardage of pleated black lace in my stash, so I cut a few galloons out and started playing.

Because I want this dress to be “just so”, I have been testing and basting almost everything before making any final design decisions. This is not a “fast to make” project, but it will be one that I have for many years, so it’s gotta be good. To test this neckline treatment, I did a few things. First, I hand-basted the seamline on the outside of the garment:
This would allow me to place the lace precisely. I wanted the motifs to be a certain height above the seamline when sewn, and this gives me that control. I was able to place the lace so the bottoms of the scallops hit right at the seamline:.
Notice that you can see the white basting thread along the seamline through the lace. This allowed me to place the scallops precisely. Next, I basted the layers together using a long running stitch, and put the dress on my (way smaller than me) dress form to see how I liked the result.

Bammmmffff! I didn’t like it. I pulled all the basting out and removed the lace. Then I sewed the neckline to the lining without any embellishment. I like it much better. I’ll post a picture of it later on after I attach the sleeves.

Now, some of you may be thinking that it was a frustrating waste of time. It wasn’t. It was time very well spent. I’d rather spend the extra 20 minutes prototyping and basting the parts together to get an idea of how the finished garment will look. It beats not prototyping, then hating the results when everything is sewn and pressed. And it eliminates the possibilities of a very costly fabric turning into a very, very costly wadder.

I’ll post more when I have the garment closer to being done: either tomorrow or the day after.
Happy sewing!

Muslins Matter November 13, 2006

by Diva Ann, GorgeousThings 

I have just finished the HotPatterns Tango Blouse. It’s a very pretty look, and I wanted to make it in a wavy eyelet that I bought from Kashi at Metro last month. I love the lines of the blouse, and I especially love the sleeves, with their fluted cuffs. I also know that, as with just about any new blouse, I wanted to make this one work out, so I made a muslin. And as always, I’m glad I did.

Even in the event that a pattern fits me with very few changes, making a muslin first allows me to find any glitches or tweaks, and it gives me a dry run on the construction process. I know some of you are rolling your eyes and saying, “A muslin? But that takes too much time!” Well, sorry to be harsh, but get over it people. It’s far less time for me to spend whipping up a basted together shell using cheap fabric (yes, this is the one time that I use cheap fabric), than to cut my good fabric and end up ruining the whole thing. Nothing ticks me off more than having to toss good fabric into the trash because I wanted to save time. I also find that muslins give me a much better view of the fit on my body than, say, tissue fitting. I’m not dissing tissue fitting. I do it. But I find that muslins just work better for me.

Let me show you the process I went through to make my blouse. After tracing off the appropriate size, I cut out the blouse using a stiff muslin I bought from Fabric.com. You can argue that this particular fabric isn’t that great as a muslin for my purposes - it’s much stiffer than my final fabric, which I have washed umpteen times and tea-dyed until it is very soft. But it suits my purpose for showing the drag lines. The first thing I did was lower the waistline darts by an inch. I knew I would have to do that before making the muslin. Then I sewed the test garment together. Here is the result of the first run:

Sharona, my old dress form, doesn’t fill it out quite the same as I do, but you can still see a couple of things. Look at the right front (on your left as you look at the screen). Here’s a close-up:

You notice some drag lines emanating from the shoulder and the armpit. The shoulder lines aren’t a problem when I wear the muslin because my shoulders are much broader than the form. But there was a definite diagonal drag line from the middle of the armscye pointing to the bust. I pinched that out and made a dart from it. I sewed that up on the left front, as you can see here:

This took care of the excess fabric. Then after conferring with my fellow Divas, I rotated that dart to the side seam:

At that point I decided to make a second muslin. Believe it or not, it’s easier and faster to cut out a whole new muslin than ripping my basted seams and resewing everything. I also changed the neckline slightly to give it a more V-neck. This was a styling detail that someone pointed out on PatternReview, and while I like the original neckline, I figured I would try it with a V and see if I like that better. To make the V, I measured to the point on my chest where I wanted the opening, and used my curved ruler to draw the new cutting line. I lengthened the collar by adding 5/8″ at the center back. Here is the result of the second run:

After trying it on, I was satisfied with the fit in the upper chest area. I still needed to adjust the armscye slightly since I had taken some length out of the armhole seam. Again, my dear Divas came to my rescue and showed me how to do that. I was able to transfer all the changes to my final pattern and make the blouse from my eyelet:

Now you may be wondering, how long did all this take? Not very. I cut out and sewed the first two muslins on Saturday afternoon. Yesterday I cut out and sewed most of the blouse (except the sleeve frill and the buttonholes) in less than an hour. It took me another hour to finish it today, but that had more to do with my Pfaff buttonhole being persnickety and not with any major construction issues. The total time I spent on this blouse, from start to finish, was less than 6 hours, maybe even less than 5. The result is very satisfying. The fit is exactly as I want it. I have a “tried and true” pattern now, and I know I can whip one of these together in less than an afternoon. Here’s what the final version looks like on me:

So the moral, dear friends, is don’t be afraid to make muslins. Yep, I mean muslinS plural, if that’s what is necessary. They don’t take that much more time, and the results will be worth every bit of effort, and you will have a garment that you will be proud to wear for a long time.

Happy sewing!

Designer Inspiration Sew-Along - Blumarine #2 November 9, 2006

By Diva Gigi 

I’ve started making design changes to my Hot Patterns Plain & Simple Tee. I started out with the scoop neck, long-sleeved version and simply made some changes to the neckline. As you can see, I made the neckline lower and wider. It took me a few tries (hence all the lines!) to get something that I thought looked similar to the Blumarine top yet provided more coverage for my bra straps. I’m going to cut this out in a scrap fabric first. If I can I may scoop out a little more at the sides. NOTE: since the neck edge is bound, you’ll need to remove the seam allowances at the neckline.

I used one of the 2″ washers that I use as patterns weights to create the little dip at the center front. I’ve been thinking a lot about how best to treat this area and think I’ve come up with an easy way. Hopefully, I’ll get to test it out on some scrap fabric tomorrow. I’ll be using the same basic method here that I will use on the sleeve treatment.

If the Curve Fits… August 6, 2006

I just finished a pair of pants from a Simplicity pattern, 4366. It’s a basic pant wardrobe, flat front with length and leg width variations. It’s a good pattern. I figured I’d give it a go and try to use up some of the 20,000 yards of fabric in my stash. If you recall a post I wrote two months ago, “The joy of 90 degrees”, I waxed rhapsodic about the way the back of the HotPatterns pants generally fit me much better than other pattern companies. I haven’t made any other pants until this week, but I decided to take my own advice and check the back crotch curve and see how it stacks up to the HP curve, which works well for me.

Me vs. Simplicity

This photo shows an imprint of my back crotch curve that Cynthia Guffey did in a fitting class, vs. the unaltered back pattern piece of the Simplicity pants. As you can see, I am much more, um, perpendicular than the pattern is. If I make the pattern up as is, and I would have done that for demonstration purposes but it was too freaking hot, I would get a pair of pants with a saggy baggy butt. This happens to me all the time with most pant patterns. The original pattern simply has too much fabric to fit me well. So what I have to do is scoop out the crotch curve to look more like me. I used a similar approach to what HotPatterns does in their pants. Sorry, I don’t have an HP pattern to illustrate. I loaned mine to Diva Phyllis. I’ll post a picture later.

The Adjusted Pattern
Here, however, is a photo of the altered back pattern piece next to the original unaltered pattern. Note the difference. It’s astounding how much I needed to take out. But the results are worth it. Instead of looking like I’m wearing old bloomers, the pants fit very comfortably in the back:

You can map your own curve using a flexible ruler that you can buy in any art-supply or sewing store. It’s worth its weight in gold for the resultant fit. You can also use tin foil, but I find that foil tends to be too flexible and loses its shape. The flexible ruler will stay true. So, if the curve fits, use it!

You can see the complete review on Patternreview
Happy sewing.

Knock off dress July 4, 2006

The moment I saw this photo

in the book “Modern Fashion in Detail” which I ordered from the Victoria and Albert museum shop in London.

I knew I wanted to try to make such a fabulous dress.
And so I tried, back in the summer of 2002 I made my version inspired by The Bird’s Wing dress by Anthony Price.
The tiny technical drawing in the book showed the full dress
I drafted the pattern from scratch using the measurements from Irene a friend who was the model for this evening gown.

This picture

shows the pleats folded down after the pattern is spread and slashed.
The brown paper shows the drafted design of the pleated part , the white paper is glued between the brown paper to form the pleats for the upper layer front dress.

This

shows the pleated pattern how it is cut from fabric (white paper insets for te pleats)

Front
Evening gown in two tone red doupion silk, lined with bemberg.
The gown pattern exists of 5 pattern parts. gown back part is sewed without a waist seam but the front gown part exists on 2 parts , the bodice and skirt part , the upper pleating part has also a waist seam and is sewed ( sandwiched ) at the right side seam of the dress
The pleats are not sewn but pressed and fabric covered buttons are sewed thru the under layer dress. The bodice part front and back of the gown is underlined with silk organza, and one piece of rigilene boning is attached at the left side seam allowance of the inner dress .

The pleating part is made of a double layer ( stitch, clip and turn) the facing layer is interfaced with a knit fusible interfacing to add some “body” to the pleats.
The gown has a long 22 inch invisible zipper at center back and a long 26 inch slit to give the necessary walking ease.

Side view

Detail view

Enmeshed! June 24, 2006

by Diva Ann, GorgeousThings 

This spring, I’ve been taken with the ready to wear I see made from mesh. It’s cute, it breathes, and I just thought it would be a cool thing to sew. So I went rifling through my pattern stash to see what I could find that would work. I came up with New Look 6405, a cute top pattern:

I want to insert a little aside here. I never used to even give New Look patterns a glance, but they have some great basics that are very well drafted and very easy to sew. They include all sizes in one pattern, and they are bargain priced compared with the big 3.

This top fit the bill for my experiment for a number of reasons. It’s fast to make, it has nice lines, and it’s a style that I think will have legs over several seasons. So after pulling this pattern, I gave a call to (insert shameless plug here) Kashi at
Metro Textiles
237 West 35th Street
5th Floor
New York, NY 10001
212/290-0518
(end of shameless plug, and aside from being friends with Kashi, NAYY).
“What have you got for Mesh, Kashi?”
“I have some pink mesh that would be very nice.”
“How much?”
“$3/yard.”
Well for crying out loud, I just paid $47 for a top made from this mesh. I can’t say no to that! “Send me two yards, will you?”

I started working on my pattern while waiting for my fabric to arrive. I love New Look, but they tend to make their tops short, and I like to have a little extra length. So I added an inch of length at the waist. I also did a full bust adjustment. This top is asymmetrical, so the FBA was very slightly more complex than the norm, but not much. Here’s what I did. The right front pattern piece extends all the way across the torso as you can see in the picture:

Starting at the right shoulder, I did my standard FBA, which you can see pretty clearly. The left front pattern piece is just a shoulder to top of bust piece that gets sewn with trim to the right front:

I laid the Left Front piece over the left side of the Right Front piece (still with me?), overlapping at the seamlines, and I taped them together with the sticky end of a Post-it note to hold them in place temporarily. Then I folded along the Center Front line so the left shoulder was lying directly over the right shoulder, and I traced my markings for where to slash the pattern. I unfolded, removed the Post-it notes and slashed the pattern pieces. You can see the results in the pictures above. It took a couple of minutes of extra time, but the results are worth it. And face it folks, if you’re sewing for yourself, let your inner Diva loose and remind yourself that you are worth every bit of effort!

My fabric arrived from Kashi the next day. It’s a pale pink mesh. I decided to make the shirt double layered in the front and back, leaving the sleeves single layered. Here’s why:

Can you say, “Violation of decency statutes”? By adding the second layer, the fabric becomes much more opaque:

It’s even more subtle against my skin, which isn’t striped (usually). You can’t see it in the photographs, but the double layer of mesh also causes cool moire patterns whenever I move.

To make this work, I serged all the seams, then topstitched with a narrow (1mm) zigzag stitch. I didn’t bother to finish the bottom edges. None of the RTW I have seen uses finishing on the hems of mesh tops, and only a few mesh bottoms have hem finishes, and those are all narrow rolled hems done on a serger.

You can see the entire garment at PatternReview

Simplicity 4237 Bubble Skirt - Part 2 June 20, 2006

by Diva Gigi 

Before I cut out my skirt I checked the finished length on the pattern envelope - 21″. Perfect, or so I thought. Don’t be misled - the finished length is 21″ from the top of the fold-over waistband to the hem. But, once the waistband is folded over the actual length is about 18″. Just a wee bit too short for me!

However, I was happy with the way the skirt fit so I simply added 3.5″ of length just below the hip (don’t forget to lengthen the lining as well). If you simply add on at the hem you will increase the circumference and, therefore, the bubble-factor. I wanted just a touch of bubble on a slim skirt so this worked out perfectly.

I chose a rayon/lycra jersey from Lucy’s Fabrics for the final skirt. I was a bit short on fabric and am not at all happy with the accidental almost-match of the waistband. However, I’ll be wearing a wrap blouse with it so that part will be covered anyway. Notice that I also eliminated the fold-over cuff on the waistband. I used a slippery nylon/lycra stretch lining from Emma One Sock to line the skirt and underline the waistband. The waistband does not call for lining but my jersey was rather thin and drapey so this beefed it up a bit.