My Pattern Contest - My Entry is Finished!

And here it is:

Ruched Sleeve Tee

I was inspired by this 3.1 Phillip Lim cotton T-shirt with ruched sleeves and high neck - http://www.net-a-porter.com/product/33023# . I particularly liked the bold sleeve detailing.

The material for my tee is actually sourced from three RTW t-shirts (because of the flower design on the front that I felt in love with) that I cut up - used one to cut out the front and back pieces from my pattern, and the backs of the two other tees to cut out the sleeves. I am now left with two fronts and 6 short sleeves:), I may make a beach dress for DD from them.
And here is the tee finished:

The slideshow below illustrates how I drafted/draped the tee. For the bodice I used a tee block that I made a few years ago and the sleeve was draped on a dressform.

Sleeve: SAs presses towards the bodice to control the “puff,” hem – unfinished, sleeves rolled up

Neckline: stabilized with bias tape and stitched down.

Bodice hem – coverstitched.

Conclusion: It was a first for me to drape a sleeve, I have no idea how a sleeve should be draped, so, my process was based solely on improvising. In any case, I like the result and will use my experience to drape other funky sleeves.

Two more photos of the sleeve:

Maxi Dress

I have been reading in magazines that maxi dresses are in and wanted to make one. The design of this dress is not originally mine - I saw a similar dress last summer in a boutique downtown. I liked the simplicity of the design lines counteracted by the impact of the front drape.



The dress is made from yellow silk jersey purchased in the spring from http://www.gorgeousfabrics.com/. I love print but think I am too petite to wear one, so I went with a vivid color instead.

The construction is really simple – no hemming, two side seams, ¾” elastic in the back and a tie that drapes the front and goes behind the neck. The actual construction time, even if you are a slow and anal sewer like me, takes max of 2.5 hrs including the cutting of the fabric.

There is perhaps one construction point worth of mentioning. When folding down the casing for the ties, after the cf is slashed, a triangle is inserted to fill in the space. It helpd if the slash line is interfaced prior to slashing.

Construction simplicity apart, it took me 2 muslins to get it right. Fortunately, I had a few pieces of ugly poly knits in my stash :) Interestingly, for me at least, the hard part about getting the pattern right was having the side seam hanging perpendicular to the floor. The front drape tended to force the side seam to come forward to the front. The first photo below is of the 1st muslin (you can see by how much it was off) and on the 2nd muslin (as you can see) has the issue resolved:

This is the pattern I ended up with:

There was one last issue to be resolved – the modesty issue (the rayon jersey is transparent enough to make people look). In a nutshell, I considered two options: an undergarment and an underlining. I ruled out underlining the dress since I thought that there would be too much fabric in the front. I have a wonderfully lightweight rayon jersey in yellowish-ecru from http://www.emmaonesock.com/ and thought that it would be right for an undergarment. I also wanted to have the possibility of wearing the dress without the undergarment if say on a beach vacation where modesty would be a non-issue. My solution was to make a “tube” from fabric. How I did it: I wrapped the fabric around my hips to establish how wide the tube should be and a/flared out slightly towards the hem, and b/tapered ever so slightly towards the bust. The top edge is finished with delicate lingerie fold-over elastic. The piece is worn under a strapless bra if you wear a bra or by itself if your girls don’t need one. Thankfully, the fabric is so lightweight and silky that it does not bunch under the bra at all. Here is a picture that shows the sheerness of the material:

And here is the undergarment w/o and with a strapless bra:



Both the dress and the undergarment are unhemmed – the edge was cut with a blade and I applied a tiny bit of clear nail polish to the very edge.

The Sailor Pant - DONE!

This is my entry (or at least a part of it since there will be a coordinating top) in the My Pattern Contest held by PR (http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/ContestGallery.pl?ContestID=68)



Materials:
Fabric:

• twill (EOS) and broadcloth (Joann) for pocketing
• Interfacing – Fusi-knit and Fine Weft Bias tape and buttons (Joann)
• Thread – all purpose thread + embroidery thread for topstitching and buttonholes

Some details:

• Topstitching was done with doubled embroidery thread
• Buttonholes – with embroidery thread, corded
• Lower edge of waistband – bound with bias tape Back double-welt pockets - I used my own technique that is a compilation of different techniques I have tried. I’ll be posting a tutorial some time soon.

These are some detailed photos of the finished product:

Conclusion: It was a lot of work to draft, fix muslins, and then make… But I am so happy how this pant turned out!

Draping / Drafting CHLOÉ Tee

The wearable muslin is finished! And it is wearable indeed!
For my wearable muslin I used 3 Mossimo for Target tissue-weight t-shirts (size XXL), on sale.

Making the unwearable muslin:
At this point I made an “overall shape” mock-up by cutting and pinning (time after time) one of DH’s oversized white t-shirts. Eventually I arrived at the muslin pieces as shown in the slideshow. Next, I added a wedge to the upper front for the cowl-neck effect. Lastly, I freehanded the stitch lines to mimic as close as possible the original design. Then I transferred the muslin to paper and trued the topstitching lines so the back and front matched.
From there, I cut out the separate pattern pieces.

This slideshow illustrates the process:

Construction:
Seams are first serged, then pressed tone side, then topstitched with a coverstitch machine (the parallel lines remain on the wrong side).
The lines that are only topstitched I first interfaced with 3/8” bias fine-knit fusible.
The neckline is faced and understitched.
Hem is folded under and topstitched.

These are photos of the WS and RS of the stitching

To do for the contest entry: I do have some tweaking to do, reposition some lines and rethink construction, but really, the style is so loose that I do not foresee any major changes. With other words, the fit was the easier part with this top. Now, I am impatiently waiting for my samples and then fabric to arrive!

CHLOÉ Exposed Seams T-Shirt

Style description (courtesy of Net-a-porter.com http://www.net-a-porter.com/am/product/31968): White cotton T-shirt with exposed contrast stitch detailing. Chloé T-shirt has short batwing sleeves and sits off the shoulder with a slightly cowl neckline. The mixture of the relaxed shape of the T-shirt with the graphic modernity of the exposed seams makes for a cool off-duty look.

This TS has been the t-shirt of my dreams for a few months now. The price tag ($495, reduced to $247.50), however, has been the why this top remained a dream, as opposed to reality.

Therefore, I decided to draft the shirt myself and enter it as a coordinating piece to the sailor pants in the My Pattern Contest.

Hotpatterns.com http://www.hotpatternsstore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HP&Product_Code=riv_HP1015&Category_Code=riv has a pattern for a t-shirt that has similar exposed seams as the Chloe one, however, the Hot Patterns tee is semi-fitted and has a slash neckline, while the Chloé one is slouchy by design and has a cowlneck.

Drafting the Pattern:

I've started by studying the photos closely and doing some very basic calculations: The website states that the length of the t-shirt is 27”. I compared the proportions of the photo (hem and bust circumference to length) and concluded twhat hat the bust and hem circ. should roughly be. Also, by doing some Photoshop experiments on the photos of the original shirt I think I “guessed” which pieces were cut as separate and which seams were just topstitched.

Now I'm making an “overall shape” mock-up by cutting and pinning (time after time, after time...) one of DH’s oversized white t-shirts. Will be posting pics of the muslin once I have something presentable :)

2nd Muslin - Getting Closer to Siling Off!

I finally made the 2nd muslin for the sailor pants… Yeah, it took a while, didn’t it! It’s made from cotton twill (in order to get a more exact idea of how the pant would drape). The front crotch problem seems to be resolved and I like the placement of the pockets/buttons/buttonholes. Here are some photos of the front and the back:

After the 2nd muslin I had a 9-point list of pattern adjustments that I needed to apply to my pattern - some minor fitting issues and some other issues related to the construction of the sailor front.
Here are my materials for the pant:

Now back to making the actual pant!