sew is your face!

wow. it’s been a hectic summer/sewing season for me this year! i swore up and down that i wouldn’t do any trunk shows because i didn’t feel ready yet. i was supposed to sew all season to beef up my inventory and do the shows next year. but somehow, i ended up doing them now anyway. i was constantly struggling, sewing like mad to fill up my rack and on top of that, trying to hone in on a beautiful, easy display. it’s a LOT of work, i tell ya.

but now that burningman has come and gone, i’m enjoying a bit of a break (until shopping season officially starts). as part of my self given reward for all the hard work, i took an intro to draping and pattern drafting class. i wanted to learn the basics on how to create patterns from scratch. i usually copy ready-to-wear garments on to shopping bags used as pattern paper, alter the pattern to my liking, then create and hope for the best. darts have always been a bit of a sticking point for me (how do you move them for instance???) i thought it was time to step up my game and gain the skills necessary to be able to create garments entirely from my own visions.

recently, one of my beloved customers: jennaluna had requested a fitted, cropped vest. “hmmm” i thought. i’d never done a custom fitted vest from my very own pattern before. i do love a good challenge sew, i decided to apply what i had learned in the intro to draping and pattern drafting class and make one for me first. i only wish i could show you how it looks on me, not the other woman. but alas, my photographer doesn’t live across the street from me anymore…

here’s how it all happened:

since i have a vintage dress form that pins don’t readily stick in, i had to first make a cover out of tee shirt material.  this gave the pins something to be pinned to.  then i marked the dress form with twill tape. i don’t recommend this method at all. it’s a pain in the neck and the cover tends to slip around. there are still spaces where the form separates and the pins are hard to secure there.  i just bought some 1/8″ tape that works MUCH better, no need for pins at all.  anyway, i then added my design lines for the vest i had in mind. here is what the other woman (that’s my dress form’s name) ended up looking like:

then came the pinning of the muslin to the other woman. once it was all pinned in place, i took a sharpie and roughly traced my design lines and darts. when everything was marked, i removed the muslin and viola! i had made a two dimensional pattern from a three dimensional form. (ok, it wasn’t really that easy but i’m try to simplify here…)

i transferred the rough pattern to actual pattern paper, trued (is that a word?) it up and was pleasantly surprised at how accurate my pattern seemed. i sewed a test garment together with muslin and it fit great! i went ahead and quilted my ties together and then cut out the pieces.

after sewing all the pattern pieces together, i realized that bias tape for the edges would be the perfect finishing touch. i decided to make the tape from the tie scraps that i had used to create the vest. i sewed them together and ran the strips through my bias tape maker, followed by a steaming hot iron. and of coarse, i poked and pricked myself a gazillion times; giving new meaning to the phrase “i gave this project my blood, sweat, and tears”.

after attaching the bias tape around all of the raw edges, i finished the vest with three pearl snaps on the front. here’s how it turned out:

and of coarse, my trademark special stitching: