Saturday, January 17, 2009

The last of Melissa's "Skirts and Blazers" and Sewing without a pattern


I am done making the skirts and blazers for Melissa. She was so excited to get them. It is so fun to have people love what you do for them. The fun thing about sewing for other people is that they have to make all the decisions about what they want and out of what. When I am making something for myself I often have such a hard time with those pesky decisions. It does help to have purchased your fabric inexpensively.

 The other day I received a box from Fabric Mart with five pieces of wool. Fun, fun. The great thing is that the fabric is way better than I expected. I only paid about $4 a yard for each piece. 
I made a lovely dress from the purply/grey wool crepe.





This dress was made with a bias technique I learned while in a class on making a Chinese Lantern skirt from Juliann Bramson. Here's a picture. I was the star pupil that day making two of these skirts (I'll post photos another time) I found my MoJo that day. 


Juliann started telling me about another technique she had learned of making clothing without a pattern. Making a skirt or dress or top with or without sleeves, and on the bias. Making clothing on the bias, when using a drapey fabric gives a wonderful hang and is very comfortable. You start this with just some yardage of fabric, and by folding and stitching you get a tube of bias. You then add holes for neck and arms for a dress or top, or you finish the end with elastic or add darts and a zipper for a skirt. Julieann told me I would probably enjoy figuring it out by myself. Sooooooo she demonstrated the idea with a piece of paper. I was so intrigued with the idea. It turns out Juliann was right, I loved the whole process of figuring it out. This wool crepe dress is done with this bias method and then the neck and sleeve openings were cut out. I used the pattern Simplicity 2846 for the sleeve and neckline cuts. I really think the sleeves and neckline are classy and cute. You can't really tell in the picture the diagonal of the dress. Here is a picture of the technique while in the tube state. This will become a skirt. The tape measures are set down on the seam lines so you can see them.

1 comment:

  1. I saw this dress on Fabric Mart's site and thought "oooohhhh how wonderful!" It is nice to know who constructed this amazingly simple but packed with details dress!

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