Tag: pattern drafting

An unexpected venture.

Oh, good grief. It’s a month since I last posted here, and I haven’t made a single one of the buttonholes I mentioned in my last post! I have made four in this blouse, though I accidentally made them on the left instead of the right. I decided it didn’t matter too much, as the blouse was for me… but then it didn’t fit, and now the blouse is sitting in the Etsy shop, waiting to find its new home. What you may or may not be able to tell from this little snippet, is that the print is covered with My Little Ponies!

I made the executive decision to split my Etsy shop into two, although at the moment they’re both selling a mishmash of the same things. Once the listings start to expire in one place I’ll re-list them in the other, and hopefully it should all be sorted out over the next couple of months.

The eternal magpie Etsy shop will sell bits and bobs that I’m clearing out from my stash, organic cotton clothing and zipped pouches as I make them, and the more “everyday” styles of felt hat. Oh, and my own sewing patterns, more of which in a moment.

Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium has become a little bit too explicable lately, so I want to have a bit of a tidy-up. This is where I’ll be offering some gemstone jewellery pieces, some of the more complicated-to-make styles of hat, and some corset belts and felt work, once I get around to making them.

So, I mentioned sewing patterns…

A little while ago, a customer who I’d made one of these tunic dresses for (way back in 2009!) got in touch. She wanted to know whether it was possible, as I no longer made these tunics for sale, for her to have a copy of the pattern. I thought about it for a minute, said yes, and set about writing up the instructions.

Since sending off the pattern, Maria has already made not just one, but three tunics – and in the absolutely most fantastic choice of fabrics! And proving that word of mouth is absolutely the best way to sell things, Maria has been very kindly sending everyone who’s admired her tunics over to the eternal magpie Etsy shop, where you can now buy the pattern!

It’s a bit of an experiment at the moment – I’m drawing out the patterns by hand onto brown paper, as I don’t quite have the technology to get them into the computer. I drew them by hand in the first place, and haven’t yet managed to replicate them accurately with my pattern drafting software, which is very frustrating. Also, my greatest bugbear about printing out patterns is having to spend ages sticking all the pages together, so I thought that sending out the patterns complete would be a nice way of saving other people from having to do that.

So, I’ll see what kind of feedback I get about the patterns – whether they’re the right sizes, whether people can understand the instructions, that kind of thing – and decide after a little while whether this is something I want to carry on with or not.

I seem to be pulled in so many different directions these days… I’ll have to see what starts pulling me most strongly.

Satisfying Saturday

Look what I just found for the princely sum of TEN PENCE at my local church fair! It explains all the things I never quite understood about dart manipulation, plus I love the 1980s styling. Brilliant!

Now this is what I call a bargain. Paul and I popped into our local church’s fair on the way home from the Post Office, where I managed to pick up this excellent book for the princely sum of TEN PENCE. I had a quick flick through, and suddenly the mysteries of dart manipulation seem a lot clearer. Once the Vintage Night’s out of the way, I feel inspired to draft myself a new bodice sloper and do some experiments!

The start of a Miette cardigan - my first top-down seamless knit. Though I'm a bit worried I'm going to run out of this great sparkly yarn!

And this, the product of about a week’s knitting (on and off) is the yoke of a Miette cardigan in a lovely mottled pink yarn with a sparkly strand running through it. I’d thought that seeing everyone else’s photos from Me-Made May would make me want to rush out and buy lots of sewing patterns. Thankfully that’s not the case, but seeing lots of different versions of this cardigan did make me want to cast on immediately! It’s a cropped style, which is good for me as I’m very short-waisted, and also good as I don’t really have enough yarn for the pattern. It’s supposed to have three-quarter length sleeves, but I’m definitely going to end up with short ones. Once I’ve finished the body, I’ll knit the neck and front bands. Then I’ll know I can use all the remaining yarn on the sleeves – assuming there is some!

I don’t know whether I’ll get it finished in time to wear it as part of Me-Made May, but I’m going to give it a good try.

(Oh, and both of these photos are also on Instagram. If you’d like to follow me there, I’m “inexplicableemporium”.)

Birthday Dress – In Progress

Overdress - in progress

This is the back view of the prototype version of my 40th Birthday Dress. So far, I’m very glad that I made a prototype, and didn’t take the scissors straight to the gorgeous shot silk dupion that I’ve got waiting!

The style of the dress is exactly spot on. The open back designed to give a glimpse of the layer underneath, the ridiculous bow inspired by a 1971 Style pattern (more on this later), and a high round neck at the front, deliberately kept very plain, to show off a big necklace or a pretty scarf.

Overdress - in progress

Unfortunately, I forgot something important. (No, not the ironing. Shush.) You see those drag lines at the sides, underneath the bust? I forgot the all important part where fabric is flat but bodies are curved, and I didn’t leave quite enough breathing room at the top. Fortunately my dress form is somewhat more generously endowed than I am, so the dress does fit. But it is a bit tight, so I’ll need to re-draft the front pattern piece before I make another. (I blame the fact that my pattern drafting books are already packed for the move, so I had to make the pattern up as I went along.)

I’ve been adding a lot of “Lagenlook” inspired outfits to Pinterest lately (you can see the board here), and the point is to wear a lot of loose layers, often with plenty of frills and asymmetry thrown in for good measure. The basic silhouette of a Lagenlook outfit is fundamentally triangular. As I am also fundamentally triangular, this seems like a great look for me!

Overdress - in progress

The annoying thing is, I’m so utterly conditioned to the “right” shape for a woman being an hourglass, or at least having some semblance of waist definition, that my immediate thought on adding this belt to the dress form was, “that’s better”.

Except that it’s not better. It’s not better at all. It pretty much guarantees that I’ll have indigestion after an hour, be uncomfortable all day, and generally be distracted by my clothes instead of focussing on whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing. None of which, however you look at it, can possibly be defined as “better”.

I think what I need to do now is take the belt away, make the next version of the dress much more wide and floaty, and try to step away from any and all forms of media that try to tell me that my body shape is fundamentally wrong.

(And work out how best to add the most ENORMOUS pockets to the front of the dress. Obviously.)

Summer dress three…

Panelled dress - front

Inspired by the dress I made last week, Vogue 1301, I made another one today. I drafted the pattern myself, using the Cochenille Garment Designer software, and made alterations as I went along. I forgot to lessen the amount of ease included, so the armholes are still a bit big, but overall I’m really pleased with this one.

As you can see, the seams are overlocked on the outside, making it super quick and easy to put together. The pockets look a bit high on the mannequin, but my waist sits higher than hers, so they’re actually in the perfect place for my hands.

Panelled dress - back

The belt is my usual 2″ sash, nice and long to make a bigger bow. The neck and arms are bound with vintage cotton bias binding. The fabric’s a cotton lawn from Fabric Land, and I think I have enough left over to make another dress!

The first priority is to make some kind of petticoat to go underneath. I’ve just ordered a 1970s lingerie book, having seen the gorgeous pictures on Miss Peelpants’ blog. I can’t wait to make some pretty things when that arrives. In the meantime I can wear the purple petticoat that goes with my my Phase Eight dress, which should make this one safe to wear for work.

Black Fleece Hoody

Black fleece hoody

I’ve been saving my pennies for ages, and last week my copy of the Cochenille Garment Designer software arrived. I haven’t said too much about it yet because I’m still on the steep part of the learning curve. This means that anything I might have wanted to say was probably unprintable anyway.

The first pattern I drafted and printed out was a simple dress… which would have been lovely if it hadn’t turned out to be at least six inches too big! I hadn’t checked the design ease in the pattern, and it was rather more generous than I’d expected. Oops.

Black fleece hoody

This little fleece hoody is my second attempt, and I’m really pleased with it! Isn’t it adorable? I particularly like the slim bell sleeves and the edge-to-edge fastening at the front. It’s trimmed with bias binding because they’s my current obsession. I think it makes for a lovely neat edge, and it would be great in a contrasting colour too.

Unfortunately I went a little bit too far the other way with the design ease on this one, and it’s come out a little bit too small for me. I’ve popped it into my Big Cartel store, alongside the organic fabrics, so if you’re a size 34-36″ chest it might be just right for you.

This pattern’s definitely a keeper though, unlike my first attempt. And now I’ve made one pattern that’s much too big, and a second one that’s much too small… it stands to reason that the third pattern I make should be just right!

Silk Corset

Alice's Silk Corset

This is a little underbust corset which matches the silk waistcoat. It’s made to a pattern that I drafted a couple of years ago. The only alteration I made to the original was that I boned the modesty panel with plastic rather than metal. This makes it much lighter to wear, and as the metal boning isn’t really structural in the modesty panel it’s probably superfluous.

I didn’t have quite enough fabric left to make matching bias binding for the edges, so it’s bound with satin. You can’t see the true shape of the corset on my dressform – it’s much more curvy in real life. Even though it looks very plain and simple, I’m really pleased with the way this corset’s turned out. I hope its new owner is too!

Pintucks and ruffles

Pinktucks and ruffles

This is just a little sneaky peek at something I’m working on at the moment. It’s a costume for Aldbrickham Clog & Step Dancers. I play recorder and concertina for them, and I’m helping out a friend who needs a new blouse.

We wear roughly Edwardian costumes, based on the working clothes worn in the countryside until about 1914. I’m putting this one together based on a Renaissance pattern, a steampunk-Victorian pattern, measurements taken from two existing blouses, and a bit of imagination!

What’s with all the underwear?

I was chatting to a friend who reads my blog posts when they pop up on Facebook, and he wanted to know why I’d been making such a lot of underwear recently.

There are two reasons, really. When my latest work contract came to an end, I thought that making simple little knickers would be a good way of using up some of the smaller pieces in my fabric stash. This has turned out to be far more complicated than I’d thought (don’t things always?) because of my apparent inability to draft a knicker pattern that I actually like. Once I’ve got that part sorted out I’ll be good to go, but there’s going to be a lot of trial and error along the way.

This ties neatly into the other reason I wanted to make my own underwear – I can’t find anything that fits. In my goth clubbing days I used to wear corsets, but because I’m so short-waisted they didn’t fit properly. So I decided to make my own. The same goes for bras – despite being allegedly an “industry standard” size, it’s painfully apparent that there’s no such thing. I don’t think I’ve ever worn a bra that’s actually fitted me well and been comfortable.

But, despite my overwhelming desire to be comfortable, I don’t want to head into my forties in boring old underwear! And when I went window-shopping online to see what else was out there, I discovered that most people’s idea of glamorous underwear is either horrid thongs and scratchy lace, or vintage-inspired pieces based on shapewear. And to be honest, I’m not really interested in being squished into someone else’s idea of a mythical “ideal” shape – I’d much rather wear something that fits the shape I actually happen to be.

So, I’m trying to design some underwear that fills a few important criteria:

  • MUST be comfortable!
  • Preferably made from a natural fibre
  • Pretty and luxurious without being scratchy or squashy
  • Can be worn everyday, rather than saved for “best”

I’m nowhere near there yet, but that’s what I’m working on, and why!

More Prototype Pants

Skulls & roses knicker-shorts

I made these over the weekend, despite the best efforts of my sewing machine and overlocker. I don’t know why both of my machines are still playing up, but it’s driving me mad. The top thread keeps snapping on the overlocker every time I come to sew across a seam, and my ordinary machine has taken an exception to sewing elastic. It doesn’t want to feed evenly, which makes the stitching look terrible.

Anyway. I drafted the pattern as per the instructions in the book, and then I sewed the knickers, and then I tried them on, and now I know what I want to change before I make the next pair. Which is almost everything. Mostly to get around the problems of my machinery, rather than anything much to do with the knickers themselves.

They have elastic around the waist but not around the legs, because I wanted something that was in between ordinary pants and french knickers. Now I can’t decide whether I actually like them or not, because they’re neither one thing nor the other.

I might have to wear them a few times and see how they go.

Prototype Pants

Prototype Pants

Today I have been mostly trying to remember my technical drawing lessons, and drafting a pattern for french knickers. This pair are made from spotty jersey (t-shirt weight), with frilly legs and an elasticated waist.

They’re quite high-waisted, they should come up to your bellybutton, pretty much. They’re designed to be a close fit to the body, as they’re in a stretchy fabric. They have a small lined gusset, so you don’t get lots of seams bunching up underneath.

Because of Complicated Technical Reasons (also known as I Can’t Do Maths) they’ve come out a bit big for me, so I need to re-draft the pattern and try again.

In the meantime this pair have been relocated to a good home, where they have been described as “a perfect fit and AWESOME!!!”, which is always good to hear!