Dressed in a Dress - The Sewing Journal

No exploration of dart manipulation is complete without addressing the back bodice, which is often overlooked. This post delves into the importance of back waist and shoulder darts for enhanced fit and design. With detailed explanations, calculations, and step-by-step tutorials, you’ll gain practical knowledge to customize patterns, eliminate fabric disruptions, and achieve precise upper back fit—all while honing your patternmaking skills.

This long-awaited post delves into single-dart designs like the French, waist, and mid-shoulder dart. We’ll uncover their connection to two-dart designs and see how dart relocation influences fit and aesthetics. We’ll gain practical knowledge to customise patterns through theory, calculations, and detailed illustrated tutorials. And the little homework will give you some extra practice.

As a fundamental part of dart manipulation, the pivotal method is a practical foundation for understanding the patternmaking process. In this post, we’ll explore darts from a different angle, shifting from the slash method to the pivotal one to efficiently relocate darts in two-dart designs by rotating instead of slashing and taping.

After three previous theoretical posts, we are finally ready for practice. At first, we'll learn about the most common dart manipulations, as they form the base for more complicated ones in the future. Why do we choose some designs over the other? What should one do to transform the basic darts into the ones you need? You can find the answers here. So, prepare your pencils, pens, rulers and paper and we are ready to start.

After learning what block patterns are, let’s take a closer look at a basic dress block and what one needs to know to create other dresses from it. This is an introductory post for future pattern manipulations—here you can see what it takes to turn a 2-dimensional pattern into a 3-dimensional garment. And if you were wondering what a dart is, the answer is here too.

In the previous introduction post, I briefly wrote about two main stages of patternmaking that lead you from an idea to a beautiful dress: the basic block and flat patternmaking. Did you know, there also are fashion blocks? And all these blocks exist not only in apparel industry but in many others? So, let's find out what they are and where you can get them.

Every dress starts with an idea. You might see the perfect one in a magazine or you might get lightened with inspiration in a fabric store when you see that silk organza with velvet dots. But one cannot sew a dress without a pattern, right? It is not that complicated, as it seams. And I'm here to help. So why not learn to make one?

Curious faces peer over my shoulder and ask what I am sewing: a silk robe or a negligee. I hear this question for the hundredth time. So I breathe out quietly in a meditative manner and with a mysterious smile, I answer that I’m sewing neither one nor the other. After all, I know that in a dozen stitches I will finish the bohemian kimono, which I have wanted for many years.

In the previous post I wrote about the difference between interfacing and interlining. There I described the fabrics and techniques I used to give this coat shape and support. And now my hands are burning, because it's time to draw a pattern for the inner structure, the Interfacing Packet.

As soon as snow covers the streets, I start to feel an uncontrollable desire to warm myself with at least one new sweater. And every time, as soon as it becomes cold and dark, I start ordering yarn. This year, the yarn did not help. A spontaneous trip to a fabric store for just to have a look ended up with me happily wrapped in a new shaggy piece of eco fur. After a month and a half, it will turn into a fur coat, which will make passers-by turn around.

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.

“Stripes are always in fashion, but now especially aggressive ones. Horizontal and vertical at the same time, wide and narrow in super-bright colours. Wrote the Vogue magazine on top of the vivid photos from the shows of Fendi, Miu Miu, Proenza Schouler in an article about the fashion trends of the upcoming 2017 year.”