Friday, June 27, 2008

Odds and ends

1. I would like to point out that Hannah's last post was our 69th on this blog and her prize will be a wink, a nudge, and a heartfelt "Good Luck".


2. I would also like to note that a boutique in Brooklyn called "In God We Trust" has recently placed an order for my purse design. Its the one on the right.




3. I also have a draping question that anybody should feel free to answer. I have a dressmaker's form that's in pretty bad shape but I've gotten one side of it to closely resemble my body and am hoping to use it for draping symmetric garments. Today while I was trying to drape a cover to fit the form. I was aiming for a basic two dart, princess line shape with the cross grain level across the BP and under the arm. I was also trying to do this out of one piece of fabric that cover from CF to SS. All of this went really well but as I was pinching out the princess line dart I kept running into the issue of having the inside edge of the dart be shorter than the outside edge of the dart. Imagine the almost strait strip of fabric that runs the length of the body between the CF and the princess seam and the rather more curvy piece of fabric that's between the princess seam and the SS. This rather more curvy edge of the princess seam was longer than the strait edge. To remedy this I took a dart out at the waist from the princess seam to the SS, parallell to the floor. My question is this... Is this a common problem? Is it that my dressmaker's form is wonky, or maybe that I'm trying to drape something that is more fitted than any wearable garment? If it is common how do other people remedy this?

Ok I guess that was a few question but I would still value your input.

2 comments:

hannah said...

i wish i could see this -- here is my guess at what's going on:
First, are you trying to drape a cover that covers the bodice and hips of the form in one piece from CF to SS? It would be ok if it were the bodice and the hips, separately, or both the top and bottom together, but two separate princess panels (CF and Side Front). If you try to do it all, you will get off grain in places like the outer hip and have to remedy it with things like waist darts.
My thought would be to go ahead and drape it in a 4 piece princess panel (CF, Side Front bodice, CF, Side Front hips) instead of darts. That way you'll be on grain all the way around the form (nice and stable and easy to work with) and in my experience that's how you get the closest and most accurate fit -- whenever we do bustiers we have an 8 piece bodice, and bustiers have to have negative ease...
hope that's helpful.

Jessie said...

When patterning princess panels, the side panel is always a little longer due to ease that is built in to accomodate the bust (much like a sleeve cap). The amount of ease is somewhat slight though. And generally the ease is contained within a certain radius around the apex. Not sure if that answers the question, but something to consider. By the way, I'll be making an informative entry soon (when I return home from mosquito land a.k.a. Wisconsin). Blegh.