Dressed in a Dress - The Sewing Journal

A magical commercial inspired me to draw a couple of illustrations. Once I watched it, I couldn’t resist wanting that blue blouse with a bow. I cannot afford to buy one, but I can at least dress my pencil-drawn alter ego in it.

When the praparation with all the materials, a place and a right pose for my future dress form was done, we were ready to get to the point. Finally, we started making a plaster mold. We did the best we could, but still the story happened to have an unexpected twist.

One year and five months I’ve spent deciding which tailor’s dummy to buy. The discrepancy between the desired and affordable option drove me into a week of melancholy. In late February, I finally determined that both options I had wouldn’t work. But I have a new idea: if the dummy that looks like me is not sold in stores, I’ll make it myself.

Imagination takes you to distant cities, introduces to people from other continents and dresses you up in clothes that you have never worn before. If building a new city is problematic, and it is sometimes impossible to find strangers from the dream, sewing a dress is easy. The main thing is to correctly translate the thought from the head to the fabric.

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. And here I write some cutting tips down and ponder about sewing. And as I promised, there is the final summary of this long story, which I sincerely hope you read.

Creating a garment is a long way and I hope this trilogy of posts can guide you. So, if you’ve just joined the reading, please, visit the first part page. It tells about inspiration, ideas, ways of getting a pattern and measurements. In this post I'm writing about patternmaking and samples. Please, enjoy.

For the first half of my sewing life, I was using ready-made patterns. Unexpectedly, the choice that the magazines provided was not enough. This was the beginning of a new era. At that moment, I was left alone with my knowledge, skills and a million doubts. There was nothing that could help. And after a while and dozens of dresses and skirts, there appeared a scheme, which I wish I had at the beginning of my work.