Shingo Sato draping technique

"The pattern pieces are never stay still, they transform and rotate through different perspctives as a piece of puzzle or geometrical maps even as tie themselves up in mental knots."

Wow, here is a really interesting (let's say jaw dropping!) draping technique called Transformational Reconstruction. It starts with a tight fitting muslin made out of basic pattern blocks... (the bodice pattern is a basic one with just 2 darts at the front, I think this is essential because you want to eliminate as much  pattern lines as possible)
Then the lines of the design are drawn right on the muslin. The muslin is then cut up in pieces, following the lines. Then the muslin pieces are used as pattern pieces and the lines are transferred onto the fashion fabric. Easy as a pie, right?.......

Creating a cloche pattern - part 2.

Part two of my cloche pattern design-cahallenge. My own 1920's cloche is ready!
Scroll down for more pics (side view)
I consider this fleece hat as a wearable muslin. I'm going to wear tomorrow when I bike to work early in the morning! The top of my hat is a single layer but the side and the brim are double layered for more warmth and strength. The fleece comes from the IKEA. It is a 3 Euro fleece blanket:

What I did after fitting my first muslin:

- marked all the seam-lines with pencil

- took the muslin apart 

- traced all the pieces 

- added seam-allowances

- decided to make another muslin out of fleece, which I also could wear as a winter hat.

Since fleece seams can't be pressed I topstitched on both sides of the seams:



Several layers of fleece would be too thick to sew so I've cut the corners and at the places with more than two layers I've cut away 1/2 of the seam allowance on the third layer:




And here it is! The transformed blanket.
I quickly tied a grey ribbon around above the brim to get an idea of how it would look with 20's style embellishments. I could imagine this hat made out of velvet or very short haired faux fur.
(It was already evening when I made the pictures that's why they are a bit blurry)

  

Creating a cloche pattern - part 1.

  

Let's start with a statement:
It is pure for my own pleasure that I attempt to make my own patterns. I don't use any existing pattern to do this, gather only visual inspiration from the internet. I am not a pattern maker and I'm not intended to sell any of my patterns and earn money that way!

Well, here is my current obsession, the 1920's cloche hat.
Cloche inspiration: There are lots of beautiful cloche pictures on the internet. There are two sorts of hats called a cloche: the one with the close-fitting round crown with mostly no brim and the more cylindric 'brimmed felt' type cloche (like in the illustration below). Both are reminiscent for the 1920's. For a nice collection of fashion drawings  click here.

What I like is the close-to-the-face shape of these hats and the embellishments. You didn't show your forehead in the twenties! The height of the hat was supposed to add height to the wearer's length too. Cloches were perfect to wear with the new hairstyle, the bob haircut. The brooch type embellishments like flowers or abstract, often art-deco-like shapes were made of fabric are used to cover up seam-lines. For myself because of my round face I'd choose the cylindric cloche instead of the round (helmet-like) one.



If you want to get in the mood, just look at these gorgeous creations!!! Pretty, handmade, almost art I would say. Since I don't work with felt I must take a look at cloches that are sewn. My inspiration are these, because these hats have a pretty cloche-shape and are sewn from unshaped woven fabrics.
I took one hat for further analyze: this one, because of the plain color and pretty shape. The structure is consisting of 3 parts: top, side, brim just like my winter hat.

Now, what are the (visible) differences in the structure?
Top: 
It is made up out of four triangles, but while my top is rather flat this one is more curved. This means I have to make my triangles bigger and more umbrella shaped. Also while my triangles match the seam-lines these are turned so they form an X rather than a + on top.
Side: 
I think the sides are quite similar, so no big changes to that for now. As I see it has only one seam-line, at the back.
Brim: 
The brim has the same width at the front and the sides and gets smaller towards the back. Again, just one seam-line at the back.

This was my first try: Too small, I added some extra fabric at the outer edges. This was quite easy.
It was harder to make the sides. I went with a two part design. I experimented with the shapes and ended with a slightly curved upper and lower part:


The top is visible here:


Number one attempt. It looked like some kind of rain-hat or fisherman hat. Hmmm...
  

Below is the 4th version with a wider top. (I haven photographed all the wasted, too small-too big versions, but let me tell you it took a lot of time to try on and adjust everything)
Here I thought the fit was right!  I only needed to shorten the sides:
 

On the first picture in the second row is clear that the new top is much wider than the first one (on the left):

 

And here is my finished design! Please ignore the notations written all over. I quickly made some embellishments just to make it look 'real':
 

 

There is still a lot left to do:

- mark all the seam-lines 

- take the muslin apart 

- trace all the pieces 

- add seam-allowances

- make another muslin from a thicker and sturdier fabric 

- check the fit again

To be continued!

Peter Pan collar for the Burda dress

    
Yesterday relaxed a bit with a cappuccino in the garden. The sun is back after a wet and cold summer.
I made a sketch of the dress. Finally I found the right fabric. They didn't have it in dark green, so I took the dark blue one. It is a thicker cotton sateen which is not shiny.

The weather was nice and warm so I couldn't resist reading the newest Karin Slaughter book 'Fallen'. All of her books are great. While I generally don't like love-stories I really can't wait to find out when Sarah and Will finally get together... I guess I have to finish the book first before I can go on with my dress!

I drafted the Peter Pan collar today. I used the tutorials of Gertie here to draft the collar pattern.
One thing I changed is that my collar pieces meet up almost in the middle. Because there is a zipper in the back I left just a bit in between the two parts (a total of 0.5 cm =1/5'').
First I placed the front and back pieces together to create the neckline. I used 1/2'' (=1.3 cm) overlap at the sleeve end of the shoulder seam.
I used the same width as explained int the tutorial which is 1 3/4'' (about 4,5 cm)



As for the front insert piece, I decided to omit the tucks because my fabric is quite heavy. I'm going to make 2 valse pleats for the row of buttons (on the right) I think that will be enough.

      

Update:
My mom just called and mentioned a dark green fabric (!!!) she has. Apparently I bought it years ago and she thought I could use it with my new sewing adventures. I didn't think of asking her about fabrics yet, so I was quite surprised she spontaneously came up with something that fits into my fall palette!
I guess I need to make the 40 minutes drive to that fabric store to be able to tackle the other colors...

Making an a-line skirt for the Burda dress

I want to make a flared, basically an A-line skirt for this dress.
First I made a muslin with the original pattern which is a pencil skirt. I took the same size as for the dress, which 1 size smaller than my measurements.
I only sew up the upper part of the skirt because I was interested in the fit around the waist and hip area. The fit is good. It has slightly more ease than a skirt would have but that's because it is made for a dress. It doesn't have to sit tightly around the waist...
To draft an A-line skirt I used my Mom's diagram here (she did a pattern drafting course somewhere back in the eighties and she gave me her notes)



- One thing I corrected first is that I've straightened out all of the lines from the hips below. As I mentioned the original skirt is a pencil skirt which is narrower at the bottom. - Then I opened up the dart and cut the pattern open straight from the dart point down.
By pivoting I closed the top points of the dart, this opened up the lower part. This way I basically transferred the extra ease to the lower part of the skirt:



- I added extra 4 cm (1.6'') to the side seam at the bottom and from there I drew a line up to the widest part if the hips:



- Filled the empty spaces up by attaching another piece of paper. This is it! The measurements of the new pattern are exactly the same as the original one.
A good tutorial, which basically explains the same is to find here.
(Note: The tutorial in the link instructs to take 1/2 of the width of the inserted piece after closing the darts. For me it is the same as the 4 cm my mom's book istructed)



Just to be sure, I made a muslin of the new skirt pattern. As usually I only made the top part to get to see the fit around the waist and hips. I also basted a zipper in the dress muslin to get a better view.  (The wrinkles are caused by the zipper which I only basted but not securely inserted.)
The only thing I need to change is to slightly lengthen the bodice back in the middle. When sewing I already added about 6 mm all around in the length. On the pics below looks like it is perfectly straight but in reality I need to add about 1 cm. I guess it is  a minimal swayback adjustment. The skirt looks perfect, the side seam lies perfectly in the middle: