Getting To the Zipper.....sigh

OK, I lied.  There was more to do before I can get to the zipper.  I considered skipping this part in my blog but, in the end, it's important to know where your operations are in your lineup and that I don't encourage someone to skip/forget a step, which in the end, creates more work.

So, this is a short section on the little steps I needed to do before the zipper.  The zipper goes in nearly last, something my mother thought was horrendous, so she put hers in before the side seams, but with my designs the sewing is too complicated for that.  These are not beginner patterns =D

First off, I had more help, today, than I had planned on.  But I managed to get to work, starting from everything in tops and bottoms, to everything put together.

I had the skirt pleated up and basted together, the gathers on the top basted to the lining, important areas marked and I was ready to prepare the petticoat to be attached along with the skirt.  First, the edges of the petticoat needed to be serged/finished and then the ends turned under, because the petticoat hangs separately inside the skirt; I don't want to catch it in the zipper.  Dresses don't hang well that way.  So, I marked where I needed to stop on the bodice inside lining, snipped a little, pleated up the fullness and attached the skirt/petticoat. 

The fabric edges are prepared for the zipper, the pin is holding the lining seam allowance out of the way, and the seam of all three pieces is between the petticoat and fabric and the edge serged.  This is faster than tacking it all down by hand.  Remember, these are quality garments, so a quick machine seam on the outside will not do.  The petticoat edge is away from where the zipper is and the next step, really, is putting in the zipper.

It's nice to have it all together.  These dresses are now hanging to give the seams time to settle where they will be.  I will leave them hanging overnight after the zipper, too.  This makes for a much nicer hem and, therefore, a better finished dress.  These little details are the difference between Handmade and homemade.

Making The Petticoat Using A Ruffler Attachment

There is a difference between a petticoat, a slip and a lining, although that interior piece of fabric can perform more than one of those functions.  A petticoat creates fullness, a slip makes sure the skirt does not tangle with the legs (hence why they are slim) and to hide that which really ought to be hidden, and a lining is mostly to make the exterior of a garment look, hang, or wear better.  This is why most of us have heard our mother or grandmother tell us to put on a slip even if a garment has an attached lining or petticoat.

I just finished a semi custom dress in which the interior piece of fabric was both a slim slip, to prevent the skirt from tangling with the girl's legs, and also it was a bit of a petticoat because I attached a 4" ruffle to the bottom to provide fullness to just the bottom of the skirt.  I could have made a separate slip and petticoat and there would have been nothing wrong with that.  That solution requires more time, fabric, and hassle, so I did not choose it.

The current dresses have another skirt made of a big rectangle of fabric.  This time I'm pleating the skirts, but, again, it seemed a good idea to make sure that these skirts hang in a nice angle, rather than straight down.  So, I decided on a tiered ruffled petticoat using a ruffler attachment to make it all go quickly. When you have only so much fabric, this isn't the best method.  Fortunately, there is plenty of the cotton and polyester broadcloth which I am using for various parts of this dress, including the petticoat, and it tears very nicely.  So, it was quick work to measure out and tear strips that were a bit over 1/3 of the length of the unhemmed skirt (7.5"x60" for a skirt who's cut length (unhemmed) is 21"). I prepared three of these and had to go back for a little more.  I'm using my serger with it's ruffler attachment, and since it doesn't take much fabric off the edges, there was no need to go calculating all kinds of seam allowances. If math is a joy for you, have at it =D

After tearing the strips, I serged them together, end to end, into one long strip.  The next step is to measure the bottom of the bodice I will be attaching to.  In this case, the bodice bottom measures 25 1/2 inches.  Since I want the fullness to start at the top of the petticoat, I measured out 30" on my strip, right side up, marking it with a pin.  Then I created a spiral by curling the strip around, matching up my pin with the end of the fabric strip. 

Next I flipped the top/end of the fabric down in order to put the right sides together.

The goal, here, is to continuously serge a ruffled seam until there are three tiers.  A thing to note is that serger rufflers can work two ways.  One way is just to ruffle a single layer of fabric and then you can attach that ruffle to another piece of fabric in a separate operation, but this attachment allows you to both ruffle and attach that fabric, which is the method I'm using here.  The point is to cut the work load!  Make things go quickly!

Once I came around to the starting point, or past, I stopped.  The next step is to turn this spiral into a simple, three tiered piece.  All there is to that is to start at the top (because this is where the measuring happened) and either draw a line following the grain or to snip and tear, snipping at each seam.  Don't try to tear through them!

I know it is hard to see, but I drew a line, following the grain line.  To the left you can see that the serged ruffle extends past the line.  Each tier needs to be done separately for the best, most usable edge, it doesn't take much time.  Once cut, the petticoat looks like the photo below and is ready to have the edges finished and then be attached to the skirt.

The next post will be about zippers.  And all will be well =D

Yes, A SketchBOOK is a Necessity

One can design on any scrap of paper.  I knew a guy who would go into bars, tell women he was a bra designer, make sketches on a napkin and get all their measurements.  No doubt, the charming Norwegian accent helped.  Goal accomplished, napkin discarded. So, why a sketchbook?  Maybe you know lots of great designers who are Born Organized, but I don't.  The more creative people are, the more disorganized they seem to be.  The point of a sketchbook is that when you want to act on a design, you can find the darned thing.

You don't have to be as AR about this as I am.  The size, quality, number or color of the pages, nor whether it has lines or not just doesn't matter.  In September, in the stationary department of stores, they have lined, spiral bound notebooks for pennies.  I use an artists quality notebook because I get distracted by lines.  It is also reasonably large which makes it easy to find.  I keep a mechanical pencil and a click eraser inside it so I can jot things down any time.  Also, I separate the dates and mark them.  This is completely unnecessary, but I like to see what I was working on, say Valentines Day of 2003.  Maybe I am OCD on top of being ADHD.  What works is more important than doing something 'right' (Right according to whom, anyway?).

So, this is a photo of my current sketchbook showing what I am working on.  This little dress (actually there are two, a little girl's size 3 and size 5) is more than halfway done, but this is where I am and there are still useful things to learn.  As you can see, I am not a great illustrator.  I make and sell dresses, so all that matters is that I understand my drawings.  Getting the drawings down on paper allows us to rethink and refine our designs, because though some emerge fully formed, most of them have areas that aren't as clearly mapped out.  In this case the dress and back ribbons were crystal clear in my head, but I realized the bodice back was boring, so I thought on paper until a more pleasing plan came about.

These buttons threw me.  I knew I wanted thread embellished buttons--they are design elements so they can be fancier than a button one would actually use.  I knew exactly what I wanted.....and it was terrible once it was made up.

On the lower left are the two failed designs.  Above them is the plain black button I wrapped the embroidered fabric around.  At the top, right is both the back and the front of the finished buttons.  This was a way to pull the hot pink from the trim into the body of the printed fabric, as well as to echo the geometric shape on the ribbon.  There is actually a 'seam' allowance in there, and,  using quilting thread, I pleated up the edge and eased it around the button.  Then I went diagonally across the open part, securing all the little pleats.  It really didn't take that long.  It's not gorgeous on the back, but no one will ever see it =D 

Repeating elements are the biggest thing that pull a design together.  If something seems thrown together, it's usually the lack of repetition that is at fault.  Pick something out and echo it on a different part of the outfit and it will be immediately improved.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

What the heck

I'm a Californian who's been transplanted a lot of places, but am currently in South Carolina.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, I find myself unemployed and looking for a way to use what I love and am good at doing to move forward.  I make little girls dresses and baby blankets and have a shop on Etsy.  Or, at least, I sew when I'm not in the kitchen cooking up something delicious and fattening. (tonight it was Chocolate Banana Cake with Buttercream filling and Hershey's Special Dark ganache)

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ElegantObasan

Here, I plan to post what I am doing and how I am doing it.  I would also be happy to answer any questions if you are struggling with your own project.  I plan to include the bumps because this is where one learns the most =D.  Not everything goes smoothly, but in the end, it all works out as long as I keep hammering on the the project. 

I have a degree in Fine Art from San Jose State University and have been a professional seamstress for 20 + years, so I didn't jump into this with my eyes closed and I have a great deal of experience both in design and with fiber arts.  A good, if ancient, Pfaff sewing machine, an almost equally ancient serger (the last non computerized model Huskylock made), and a Brother embroidery machine with a 4" sewing field are my power tools.  Good equipment helps, but good things can be made on any equipment.  This is where design creativity really comes in handy!

I hope you will follow along with me and make suggestions!  I'm a far better seamstress/designer than I am a blogger!