What Does It Take to Create a Garment? Part 3.
Category: Design Process 29 July 19
This is the final and the shortest part of my yet longest trilogy.
If you’ve just joined, feel free to start with Part 1, which tells about inspiration and preparatory process, and Part 2 – there you can read about patterns and samples.
Let’s continue.
7. Cutting the fashion fabric
Well-done cutting also needs some rules:
- The fabric needs pre-shrinking with heat or water beforehand, so that after the first wash the M-size blouse won’t unexpectedly turn into XXS.
- To work faster, cut symmetrical and paired details in 2 layers.
- It is important to make sure that the piece of fabric is of the right size. So, at first, place all details on the fabric together and check if they fit in. Only after that, draw the outlines.
- With each detail, it is important to follow the direction of a grainline.
- Drawing materials sometimes spoil the right side of the fabric, so draw the contours and marks on the wrong side. It’s better to trace details with copying stitches, but this process takes more time. Chalk or a piece of soap is the safest way for me.
- With a ruler, draw equal seam allowances at the seamlines that will be stitched together. Later it will be easier to match the details. Sometimes you have to spend a little more time at the start, so then the work will go 2 times faster.
- In the end, carefully check and cut the details out.
8. Final assembling the garment for fitting and adjustment.
Now I sew the details, cut from the fashion fabric, as I did with the sample. Everything should go smoothly. Sometimes corrections also occur here, but they are done quickly.
9. Sewing
It seems that most of the way is already passed behind, and the easiest thing left is to sew. Sometimes it’s like this, and at times, it is like opening the last door at the end of an entangled labyrinth, and behind it, there is another one. There’s nothing else left, you get through it because excitement is too strong.
It is difficult to come up with a single sewing scenario. The details and sequence of work differ depending on the idea. Sometimes it takes a couple of days to sew, and sometimes a couple of weeks, if the dress or a jacket is of a complex cut, or if the fabric is unstable. Or maybe the author, as a true connoisseur, decided that each flounce of the future dress needs a hand-finished hem, which, of course, no one will see. Not everyone understands this passion, of course. It’s ok, for me it is not about speed and quantity, but about details, attention and love with which I create the garment.
And as I promised, here is the final summary of this long story, which I sincerely hope you read.
Thank you for staying.
Yours,
Kaia