Work in Progress Exhibition

As part of our pre-collection, some of the students are chosen to exhibit their work in the Hay Gallery at Uni. Some of these students are then visited by Paul Smith’s team and are chosen for the Nicole Abbott award.

We were able to have a look around the exhibition and see how they have presented their work. This will halpe to get ideas for when we have to present our final collections at the end of the year.

I really love the way that this collection has been laid out. This is a fashion and textiles collection so I like the way they have shown both of them. The wall with the different prints layered up were my favourite. It looed really effective and it showed all the work that had been done. Next to that, there was a wall with the printed ties. They were hung and wrapped around a copper pipe. The other squared of printed fabric were hung with fishing wire so you couldn’t see it.

 

This is also a print collection. What I really love about it is the giant pegs that they have used to hang the print up with. I think they are the perfect size, they arent too small like normal pegs and they aren’t too big that they stand out. I also like the idea that you could change the colour of them to match your collection because they are made of wood.

This is my favourite way of displaying a porfolio. I like that they are all on a cupboard, it kind of adds a frame to them and makes them stand out more. They each have a layer of plastic over them or have been laminated to make them crisper and to protect them. It also makes them look important.

 

Rose Skirt

One of my dress designs that I have drawn was a skirt with panels that then turn into roses. I had this idea up in my head so I wasn’t actually sure if it would work, but had a go at making the pattern up myself.

I started by drawing round a skirt block pattern, I then split the skirt into three panels. I kept the darts where they were but I should have thought about moving them to where the panels fall. I traced off the panel pieces seperately and added seam allowance along the top part of the pattern, I left the bottom because that’s where I’m not sewing. I then cut them out and pinned them to fabric and cut them out.

I started with the far left panel of the front of the skirt. I sewed it to the other middle section, right sides together. I then folded them over at the seam and topstitched along it to create a ridge, much like a french seam. It was best to steam them between each ridge to keep them crisp. I did this with the rest of the front panels. I then started with the back panels by sewing each side and leaving an opening at the center back.

I pinned it to a mini mannequin so I could see how it worked and I was really happy. It was still quite lond at this point as I hadn’t done the roses yet. The roses proved to be a lot more difficult than I thought, maybe because they are done at half the size. I once I got the hang of it it went well though. I’m really happy wth how it turned out and think it’s a really interesting idea!

 

Sewing the Bamboo

Next lesson, I moved onto cutting out and putting together the bamboo folding idea. This was actually a lot easier than I found it would be, I did a lot of practice on the paper version so I knew what I was doing.

I started by lining up the calico version with the paper version on top, that way I know where all the marks and lines were. I then put a pin in the angle where it folds, the mark that I am folding over, and the line that I am folding to. I then ripped the paper temple out the way and did the folding. I started by pinning the fabric over in place so it didn’t fall apart. I then put all the rest of that folded fabric under the rest so it didn’t get in the way. I then moved onto the next fold. I did the same as the first one, pinning where I needed to fold it and folding it over. I did this with the rest of the folds until I got to the top. I decided to move all the pins from the font to the back, so that they could hold it in place without being visible. I will later on tack the back with a few stitches so that it doesn’t fall apart and there are not any pins in it.

Bamboo Origami Fashion Construction

For our support module, we have to design and make a final toile using techniques that we had already learnt. We also had to try and incorporate our initials into it. I found that really hard because mine is a S so it is just a wiggly line. Instead, I tried to use an A from my surname instead. I originaly found it realy hard to think of ideas but then Val game me the idea to look at TR Cutting. I really loved the bamboo folding that I saw on there and thought it would be something great to have a go at. I also thought that the make the folding look like a A shape which brings in my initials.

I started by drawing round the bodice block. I closed up the waist dart and opened it up in the shoulder dart. I then drew the tuck lines that I wanted, making sure the top two lines connect with the bust points. I decided to do my lines the other way to what they are usually done so I made it harder for myself. Because of that, I had to do my pattern piece upside down, so that it is like the original way. I turned it upside down and cut up each line to the end point. I then laid out the piece on a different pieces of paper and opened it up. I had to draw a 10cm line to open up each gap the right length and stuck them down there. I also had to make the middle of each of those lines. I continued drawing the lines so that I had the arms for folding the pieces under each other. I cut down each of those new lines to the cross line, and then round the whole bodies. The piece was ready for folding now! I was really confused by this to start, the paper was really stiff and I couldn’t get it to where I wanted it to go, and the pins wouldn’t go through.

Subtraction Cutting

Today, we were trying out substraction cutting, a different kind of fashion construction to what we normally do. Instead of the usually was of havng a block that we work from then make from there, this one is done so that we don’t know what it will end up looking like in the end. I was very wary of this because I like to know that it will look like how I designed, but with this method I will never know.

We started by laying out two sheets of material on top of each other, then sewed round three sides so that one side was still free. We then placed two circles over it, making sure that we only cut through the top layer. The further away the circles were placed, the shorter the dress, whereas the closer the circles were, the longer the dress would be.

We then turned the fabric over and they chose where we wanted the head and shoulder holes to go.The placement occured here too, so if they were further away they were shorter. We were going for a shorter dress so we placed them further away again.We then connected up the armholes and cut them out, making sure to only cut the top layer again.

The next part was sewing it together. We started by pinching the shoulders together and lifting the dress up. We sewed along the shoulders, then along the curved lines that we just made to the armholes. There was a lot of fabric which made it very hard to sew, but we did it in partners so that we could help each other. We then made to sew the circles. We turned the dress the right way then put it on a mannequin. I found it really difficult to turn try and do the circles. I couldn’t find them in the first place, then I couldn’t pin them because there was so much fabric. We checked with Louise to see if it was right because the skirt was twisted so we had to unpin and pin it again. We did it again but it still didn’t look right, we think we did it too short so it didn’t actually work.

These were the final result, it didn’t actually end up like a proper subtraction cut because the tunnel wasn’t in the right, instead the tunnel was on the outside of the dress on the back. I like how it turned out because it looks like a shift dress, all the fabric is at the bottom of the dress shape. We then started styling it in different styles.

Sleeves

Today in fashion construction, we moved onto making different sleeves.

We started off with a dropped sleeve, this means that the shoulder seam doesn’t actually sit on the shoulder, but lower down on the arm. To start making it, we drew round the front, back and sleeve blocks. We then measured how much we wanted to drop the sleeve on the center line of the sleeve. We curved off this mark to the 2 corners. We then cut out the excess shoulder parts that we just curved out of our sleeves, and layed them on top of the shoulders on the front and back blocks, making sure that the bottom curve lines up with the original block curve. We didn’t actually make this pieces, but I have all the pieces so that I can at a later date.

We then moved onto raglan sleeves. This sleeves mean that the arm piece is conected into the neck. These are usually seen on sports tops. To start these off, we drew round the front, back and shoulder blocks. The front and back block both need the shoulder dart moved into the waist dart. A curved line that is connected to the neck hole and the armhole is drawn, this is what it will look like when sewn together. We cut out the two sections we just drew in and we placed them on the sleeve, so that the two curves fit together. These were stuck down in place. The sleeve could either be done in two pieces, so there is a seam down the top of the arm, or done in one section with a dart at the top. I did it in one piece. We traced round the pieces, pinned them to fabric, and cut them out. The first bits sewn were the darts. I then lined up the sleeve with the front and back sections and sewed them together, making sure that they are on the right side. I then sewed the bottom sleeve seam and the side seam. The raglan sleeve is probably one of my favourite pieces that we have made in this lesson. I have garments, or have seen garments that have this kind of sleeve and think they look nice. I would love to bring this into the final piece that I make in this lesson.

Grown-on Collar

Today, we spent the whole day making a grown-on collar.

We started by drawing round the whole of the bodice block. We then drew a line that was 1cm from the CF. Anywhere on that line we marked the breakpoint. We connected the breakpoint to the shoulder point with a straight line. We measured how big the back neck was (4cm) and drew a line from the shoulder line we just drew measuring that. Draw a right angle line to the right in 9cm. From the line we just drew to the breakpoint, draw a curved line that would be the shape of the collar.

We then traced off all the pieces that we needed. The original front with the collar. A piece with only the collar, the front facing. A back piece. And a back neck facing.

To start sewing, we did all the darts. We then sewed the shoulder seam on the front facing together. We then sewed the back facing to the back piece along the neck and shoulder. On the front facing pieces, we sewed the back neck facing to it. We then sewed the curved collar pieces together. Then we just sewed the finishing pieces like the side seams and the back facing to the back to keep it down.

This is the finished pieces, it was a lot of trouble to make and put together but it looks really good in the end and I am very happy with it.

Panels

Today in fashion construction, we moved on to creating panels.

We started off with a centre shoulder to waist panel. To do this, we started by drawing round the block, darts and all. We also had a back block that we drew round. We connected up the two dart lines so make one big line. We then took in the outer sides by 0.5cms and the same on the bottom of the waist darts. We traced round the 4 sections and added seam allowance to the dart sides

We then moved onto a armhole to waist offset bodice panel lines. We started by drawing round both the front and back block. We started by drawing the curve bodice panel that went from the armhole to the waist. We then measured the original waist dart and drew it in over the line that we just drew. We were adding a dart in the side rather than they shoulder so we had to move it. We drew in the dart that we want in the front, connecting with the bust dart point. We then did the cut and stick method to get rid of the shoulder dart but open up the one in the side. We drew in the balance points and cut out the 4 different sections.

We then moved onto a skirt with complex lines.We drew round the front and back of the skirt block, lining up the sides together. We drew in the style lines that we wanted, making sure that they went through the bottom of all the dart points and hit the bottom of the block. We cut up all the panel pieces, making sure the middle seam was cut out as one, then closed the original darts up. We pinned them to the fabric and added seam allowance to the seams we would be sewing. We started by sewing the two middle sections together and one of the darts at the waist. We then pinned in the curved sections carefully and sewed them in place. We kept one of the darts open so that we could get it on the mannequin and photograph it.

Dart Manipultion

Today, we started our support module for fashion construction. I was really excited to start this because I really enjoy sewing and I like learning how to make new things.

We started by looking at how to move simple darts, a neck dart, a side seam dart, and an armhole dart.To make these, we had a mini bodice block and we had to make a mark where we wanted to move the dart. We started from that mark and drew round the block clockwise until we hit the first dart. We had to close the dart by putting the pencil in the bust point and moving the block anticlockwise so the other dart point is where the first one was. We then continues to draw the block until we hit the other dart and did the same thing. We continued round until we got to where our new is going. We connected up the gap and connected it with the bust point. After we had done 2 or 3 of these, they started to get a lot easier to do.

After that, we moved on to doing a diamond insert dart. This sounded really tricky and I was quite worried about it. Instead of drawing round the block like last time, we had to do the cut and stick method because it was easier. We started by drawing round the whole block, including the original darts. We then marked where we wanted out diamond to go and cut it out. We then closed the two original darts by cutting along them then sticking them shut.

After that, we had a go creating asymmetrical curved dart lines. We started this one on the fold of the paper so we had two halves. We drew round the whole block, including all the darts. We then used a tracing wheel to follow the lines of the darts so we can easily draw them on the other side of the paper. We opened up the whole piece and started to draw in our new curved darts. One of the lines is drawn from one bust point to the opposite shoulder. We did another curve from the other bust point to the side seam. We then cut along the new dart lines and closed up the old ones.

After, we pinned them to the material and cut them out. For the neck dart piece we turned it into gathering at the neckline by curving out the neckline more. We pinned them down and cut out all the necessary pieces. We started with the gathering at the neckline by gathering between the two dart slits. After that we did the curved darts. We had to pin the two sides together then carefully sew along the lines to get the curve. The diamond insert dart was the trickiest. We pinned the diamond on one side of the bodice, we sewed one edge then pivoted at the corner so it was all moved round the sewed the other side. We did the same for the other side of the diamond and sewed the front seam together.

The Finished Dress!

As I had pretty much finished the all the top parts of the dress last week, it was time to start doing the bottom half and sewing it all together.

For sewing the shirt and dress together, I didn’t want to fold it in and sew the raw edges together. I thought it might end up too bulky and uncomfortable on the inside. Instead, I kept the raw edge of the dress and sewed the shirt from the inside. I thought the raw edge would keep in theme with the rest of the dress because all the ruffles have raw edges. I did some blue top stitching over it. I did the same with the back of the dress and shirt. I then did the shoulder seams with french seams.

To start the sleeve, I did the elbow dart. I then lined up the sleeve with the shoulder seam of the dress. It was a little hard to line up because the sleeve was a little too small, however after a lot of moving it around it finally fit. One the shoulder was done, i could then do the side seam. I did the arm and the dress in one long line so that it all connected.

    

After all the top part of the dress was finished, I could work on getting the dress on.I started by laying the whole of the dress on a table. I worked out where the middle of the skirt was and cut down into it so that I could fit the zip in. I then had to fit the skirt in with the top. The skirt was bigger than the top part it was fitting into, so i had to made some large pleats in the skirt until it fit in. This did make it very hard to sew because the folds were very thick and the sewing machine wouldn’t go though them very well. However, it did in the end and it all lined up well.

Once the dress was all together, i could then get the zip in. I lined up the zip, one side at a time, and fitted it in at the top. I used an exposed zip so that it didn’t have to be sewn under the gold fabric because you would be a blue zip under it. Once one side was fitted in, I then fitted the other one in, making sure that it lines up.

And the dress was finally finished and ready for the photoshoot tomorrow!