Toiling My Lantern Skirt

The other week I started toiling my Lantern Skirt, I first drew a horizontal straight line and then a vertical line at a 90C angle to the first line.  as I am going to have 8 panels to create the ball shape, I have to divide each measurement into 8. I then took an 8th of my waist measurement and marked it evenly across the top line where the line crosses.

I then measured how long I wanted the skirt and added a little extra as it will poof out and marked the bottom line down from the waist line, I then drew a line half way down. After I had the grid I measured how wide I wanted the half way point, divided by 8 and then marked the points on the line, I the did the same with the hem. After that I drew a curved line connecting the waist line measurements and the same for the hem. I then drew a curved line on each side making sure it passed through the middle measurements. 

I then added a 1cm seam allowance all the way round, and then cut out the pattern. I then folded the fabric so there was 4 layers and cut out 8 pieces. 

After I cut out the pattern I realised that it was far too wide so I trimmed 4cm off each side. Remembering to keep the same curve. 

 After I had my pattern pieces I sewed them all together at the sides and then sewed half way up the back seam for  a zip, It will look much better with netting underneath to bag it out. I thought the skirt looked too long so I took off Around 10cm off the hem off the pattern. 

And that was the finished toile, unfortunately I didn't take pictures of every step but I did recreate my pattern on Illustrator which is the first image. 

Thanks for reading!! What do you think of my first toile?? 

Jenny xxx

Working On the Stand

 Today at college in the afternoon we started working on the stand in pairs, today I worked with my good friend Jess.
I think the aim of this was to create what ever shapes we wanted and to get us used to working with fabric again, and to show us how designers would create patters using draping.

We started just by folding pinning things in places(there was no real plan) here are some of the shapes that we came up with.

 Here we made one piece of fabric look like a two piece or a dress by folding it at the waist we also added pleats on one shoulder and pinned the sides back to create the look of sleeves.

 

This is one thing we were told to do and that is to fit the fabric to the bodice using darts, this would then be made into a fitted bodice pattern.

 

 here we adjusted the fabric to create a one sleeved look and added two folds one coming up from the hip and the other coming down from the shoulder.

 in this sample we draped the fabric from the neck and I got Jess to hold our the edges to create more dimension.

 



 

 

 In this sample we pulled the fabric through the elastic on the mannequin and then folded it back over adding pleats to the waist

 

 here we created a pleated one shoulder and added diagonal pleats from each side.

 in this sample we pinned the fabric straight across the chest and pinned one corner of the fabric to the opposite side of the chest and added folds on the sides.

 

 

 

This is the strange oyster shape Jess came up with which would probably be impossible to turn into a pattern! to do this we pinned 1/4 of the way down of the fabric to the shoulder and scrunched and pinned until we were happy with the shape.

 

 

 (of course because its me we had to  make some bows!) to do this i unpinned some of the previous shape and folded each end over to create a puffy bow shape and then dragged the remaining fabric over the centre to create a bow.

 

 

 

To do this one we first folded the fabric like you would a fan and then pulled it through the fabric and pinned the sides up. We then carried on working with this adjusting the shape each time.

 



here we pinned the edges to the back to flatten the sides.

 

here we scrunched one side of the fabric pinning as we went along.

 

 

Thanks for reading! which is your favourite shape??

 

Jenny xxx

Independent Project : Bubble shorts

For pattern cutting we have a choice of doing an independent project to help get a distinction, so for my independent project I decided to make some bubble shorts.

I first saw K.L wearing these in her 5 OOTD: I wear a weapon..or Two + Jewelmint Giveaway!!!  video and I really wanted a pair!! She said they were from yesstyle so I went on their website and I couldnt find them! So I decided to make them, also now that I have the patterns and the know how I can make more in different fabrics.

So here's how I made the shorts :

First I started by tracing around a trouser block, or in my case a long short pattern block thing? this already had a 1cm seam allowance so I drew that in.

After that I drew my design lines, about 4cm below the seam and then I added a 1cm seam allowance on the end of that I also drew in the darts and added the grain line.

I then traced over my first draft up to my design lines with the 1cm seam allowance and then I cut these out, as I used an elastic waist band I scribled the darts out and then I had my finished lining patterns.

Then I traced over my first draft on another piece of paper without the seam allowance, I also shortened the patterns as the first draft were a bit too long. I then divided the pattern pieced into 3 equal sections and labeled each piece 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 and cut these out.

 

I took a new piece of paper and drew a line some where in the middle from one end of the paper to the other. I then placed th epieces in order 6cm distance from each other matching the hipline to the line I drew before, then I taped these down and filled in the gaps.

I traced over my adapted pieces and added a 1cm seam allowance and grain line and then cut these out and I had finished my patterns.

I then did a lay plan to see how much fabric I needed, I found that I needed 1 1/2m of fabric, So I got my fabric and then pinned down my patterns and cut them out.

I started with my lining pieces and sewed the 2 fronts together and 2 backs together down the curved seam and then I presses the seams open. I then placed the fromt and back pieces right together and sewed down the sides. 

I then sewed the pieces together at the crotch and pressed the seam open.

I then did exactly the same with the outer pieces.

 

After that I gathered the waist on the outer piece to match the width of the lining fabric and the same with the leg holes.

 

My pieces didn't match at the leg holes, to fix this I lined the patterns together and cut off the extra, then I cut off the extra on the fabric.

 

 I then sewed the shorts to the lining at the leg holes, this is was very confusing and I did have to un pick one leg and cut my self in the process, to do this I basically put the shorts together how they would be if they were sewn together and then turned them so that I could sew them.

 After that I sewed the lining and the outer shell together at the waist.

 Then I sewed on the waist band which was just an elastic, to do this I sewed the ends together and pinned the elastic whilst stretching it to pin it I then overlocked the elastic to the shorts making sure the edge of the fabric was almost touching the blade. When I did this I should have stretched the elastic a bit more.

I then tried them on and found that they would look better if the seam from the elastic was stitched on top to give a nicer finish, so I top stitched making sure I cought the seam undernieth whilst stretching the fabric.

I also unpicked the gathering as that was all in place and the stitched wern't needed.

So here is the lovely Alycia modeling the finished product for me as they didnt fit on the mannequin! 

 If I make these again I will use a longer elastic as this was all we had, I would also like to try a different techniqe with adding the waist band.

If I make these to wear I will probabily make them with a little bit less volume to make them slightly more wearable.

I think I would like to make them again from this fabric ^^  but im not quite sure yet.

Thanks for reading!! I hope you liked this post!

What fabric do you think I should use??

Jenny xxx