Rhinestic's Knick Knacks

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Toile Making: Chris Signature Skirt

Housework and the exhibition cross-stitch project (Oh gosh! I think I'm kinda running behind time!) aside, I have been busy drafting and sewing the toile of my skirt for my pattern construction/sewing classes.


My skirt is fundamentally a pleated panel wrapping round my slight A-line skirt piece. Instead of a waist band, we were taught to use facings instead.

Looks simple enough? Well, the pleated panel was a little tedious to make since the unfolded piece was really long and I had to combine my calico fabric 3 times coz the weft wasn't wide enough. Then I had to go through the same process to cut out my lining, and pinning the pleats together like mad so that they won't move. Otherwise, it's pretty straight-forward.

Ironically, the A-line skirt portion was the one giving me a bit of a headache. In our drafting lesson, we used the "closing dart" method to draft our A-line skirt. Meaning, the final skirt won't have darts because it's already taken care off by the redrawn curvature of the waist line and the side seams on the hips. But that posed quite a problem for me, since I have my zipper at the side seam. Increased curvature + side zipper = unsightly puckers. 

Unfinished pleated panel + A-line skirt version 1.0

Snipping the curved seam allowance might have solved this problem but I like my side seams neat so I ended up drafting the traditional A-line skirt, which includes the darts with less curvature on the sides. And indeed, this version sat much better on my waist.

However, after trying the pleated panel + A-line skirt version 1.1 combo, I figured the hem of the skirt needed to be a little longer and the A-line less flared. And so, I had to go back to my drafting paper and draft out a 3rd version. Which you are seeing in the first photo. 

My final pattern pieces

I thought I should name the skirt since this was my first made-from-scratch fitted skirt of my own design. Chris Signature Skirt it shall be! =) 

1 comment :

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