Fashions notes

TOILE DAIRY

Today was the day when all the fun began! A few weeks ago I developed my final design further and had chose the right fabrics to use, so the first step was to sample all the difficult parts and my design not being so straight forward and simple (that would be boring) I thought I might as well circle it all ha ha but not I decided the structure and the shape needed further work, the yoke for the back of my shirt as I had never created one before, a hip pocket and a button stand.

Further on down the line I started creating my pattern for the back part of my dress. I had to decide the length and measure the size of my cooper pole as there is no dress block to draw around.

Sampling difficult places

Yoke with box pleat

When patterning for this box pleat I have decided I am going to place it closer together but I like the chunky-ness of the pleat at the back. Also I will add top stitching to the final toile.

Heavy weight button stand

Firstly I measures the width of fabric then divided it by 2, twice and followed it down the answers creating notches at the time making sure its all straight

In the middle of the folded fabric I placed a piece of fabric making sure two folders were on either side and I did a 0.5 top stitch

When looking back at my design I have realised that I will not need a line of stitch at the bottom or top as I am leaving it with raw and frayed edges.

Hip pocket

I am happy with the turn out of this pocket but I think I might for it to smaller and see which I prefer. I think the way its raw around the edge as I feel it gives it a stronger effect rather than a neat and tidy look.

Copper shoulder structure

This concept took lots of thought process and finally came up with an idea that I think is going to work, so after a trip to B&Q I had everything i needed to create a copper dint in a straight pole. This is so that it rests on the models shoulders and doesn't strangle them around the neck. I am also going to try and create a feature so that some copper piping comes down the front and supports the models chest and creates the full effect of my design.

To bend the copper I used a metal spring and placed it inside of the pole in order for it to curve smoothly! I then placed it around the mannequins neck and applied pressure so that it bent slightly creating a soft and level curve, this was an easy process but I did need a little help as Im not that strong haha.

Detail on felt

Firstly of all I was just planning on using biro on felt but realised that it slowly wares off which isn't what I want to happy also it making the felt go fluffy. So I problem solved this by testing different pens such as markers, biros and fine liners then decided to test of loose stitching on the machine and realised it was the answer to my problems! then came the colour of thread to use with I went for a middle of the chart brown but the stitching made the fabric curl which was another problem I faced which meant I headed straight towards the heavy weight interfacing and yes it saved the day and worked perfectly.