Yesterday, I introduced you to my model Beth Nordlund aka Ms. January. I also shared what I am hoping to design for her in the next week. You can read that story here. <http://mariacshell.com/2013/01/18/ms-january/>
This morning, while I taught at the Quilt Zone, my dear husband served as my proxy at the meeting for the designers and models about the Object Runway show.
It turns out I must have my Queen of the North design for Object Runway at the Beartooth by two o’clock on Thursday afternoon. Beth does not return from Washington D.C. until the wee hours of the night on Thursday morning, so this will be a wild ride at the end. I may be bringing my sewing machine to Beth’s office!
The best plan of action would be to get it done early and be prepared, but that isn’t my normal mode of operation. Maybe the act of blogging will help me change my ways. Wouldn’t that be nice? Let’s see if I can get the dress done by Sunday, so that I have three full days to work on the headpiece that goes with the dress.
Yesterday when I left you to go down into the studio and begin constructing this garment, I had finished the pattern.
I have taken the original dress design and broken the pattern into more pieces. From what I understand about the fashion world this is called Color Blocking. In my world its called patchwork.
I decided to piece the center front of the garment to look a like a breast plate. If I were working with yardage, I would cut strips and sew them together. Since I am working with scraps, I piece them to fit within the shape of the pattern piece like this.
The strips are staggered to become the size of the pattern piece.
Because this dress is a v-neck, I need to piece two separate sides that must be mirror images. Once I do that I can build the bottom of the breast plate.
Here is what they look like before I cut them into the pattern pieces.
I want as little waste as possible.
Now that the top of the breast plate is done, I can build the bottom. I decide to repeat the fabrics in the same order starting with the marbled grey fabric I used at the top of the breast plate.
This is what the breast plate completed looks like.
I’m liking it!
Here is the flip side of the breast plate. I press all of the seams open. First I press the seams open from the back and then I flip the piece over and iron again from the front. I know this might sound particularly geeky–but ironing REALLY does matter.
Beth had said that she liked teal so I decided on this fabric for the sides of the breast plate.
Do you see that this is the front of a cardigan? It used to fit a regular sized woman, but now it is only big enough to be the sides of the top of the bodice.
Now, it is on to the skirt. This is longest garment I have made out of felted sweaters. In preparation for making this dress, I had been saving some bigger sweaters so that I might have pieces larger enough.
The wool fabric is under the pattern piece so you can what I need to add to make it big enough.
As you can tell here, the sweater I have selected is ever so slightly too small. At this point I must decide how I am going to add patchwork lines to the skirt that not only make the wool big enough, but also create interesting lines in the dress. I decide to insert triangles.
To do this properly, I draw two triangles onto my master pattern. I then trace those triangles onto pattern paper, add seam lines and cut it out to make the new pattern piece for the skirt.
Here is the front of the skirt with the two pieced triangles.
Now I put the pattern piece on top of the pieced wool and cut the shape of the center panel of the skirt out. I like this so much I decide to do the same with the side panels of the skirt.
In class this morning, I showed my students what I had completed so far and asked them If I should share it with you, and they said no–it should be a surprise. You will just have to trust me when I say I have finished the front of the dress and I am now working on the sleeves and back.
Here is the a close-up of what the triangles look like pieced together.
The skirt for this dress is slightly flared.
Back to the sweatshop!
way cool!
Cannot wait to see the dress!!! Some hints about the ‘headress’???
Pingback: The Making of the Mod « Maria Shell