Sew Green 3/24

Today was a very exciting day at Sew Green. I got to start my first dress! (the owl). So, first thing's first is that Autumn and I looked over my sketches again. Since I wasn't experienced making very detailed sketches, I was missing a lot of stuff. One thing that she noted was that in the flat sketch of my owl dress, the back was low slung, and that if both the back and the front were low slung, then if the model relaxed her shoulders, the dress would fall off! I needed to sketch a new back for the dress, and after much thought, I decided to have a wide racerback. I didn't want a halter, because then the straps would have been too close to the neck, and I didn't want a narrow racerback, since that would make it look like a tank top. I wide racerback looked a bit more formal.
Autumn told me that the biggest limitation in Ithaca is fabric, and especially since I have a limited budget, I should design with a specific fabric in mind. The only problem though is that I don't know how much of what kind of fabric to buy. So when I walked in, and we were planning to make my owl dress, I still didn't have any fabric for the dress. We decided to visit the Sew Green store, and I was about to settle for a fabric that was a little rougher and stiffer than I wanted, when I spied the perfect fabric in the back of the store. I seem to always find the best stuff in the unmarked section. Since there were some stains on the material, I got the whole thing for free, but I feel bad taking the fabric without paying, so any fabric that I have left over after my project, or that is left over from my own personal inventory, I plan to donate to Sew-Green (along with any left-over money).
I now have two gifts from Sew-Green. One is approximately three square yards of the material I needed for my dress, and the other was a small, half yard portion of fake fur, which will be perfect for the sleeves of the jacket that will go with the dress. The dress fabric is the exact color that I had wanted, and even had some stretch! The only problem is that it was shiny polyester, and although I can turn it inside out, and then it won't have any shine, I need to think about whether I want it to be shiny or not.
We then started draping. First, I used bias tape (though it wasn't real tape, but just shoelace material- I actually liked it better, since it draped like my fabric), and pinned it on the mannequin in the shape of the neckline and arm lines of my dress. This probably took the longest, since I had to make it symmetrical, and just how I wanted it. I then cut the fabric for the back piece. When cutting the material (polyester fabric is woven in a loom, with one continuous strand), one cuts parallel to the finished edge (or selvage) along the lengthwise grain, unless it is a fabric that one can rip along the crosswise grain. The link below explains the weaving process, and how to cut the fabric properly according to what kind of fabric it is.

http://www.scrapquilts.com/fabric_grain.html

The image below shows the selvage, bias, and grains, but the website isn't as good at explaining how to cut the fabric or why one needs to be so specific.

http://www.thetraintocrazy.com/2010/02/clothing-sew-along-week-2.html

The dimensions were as such: for the width, I measured from below the armpit on one side of the mannequin to the other, and then added ten inches. For the height, I measured from knee height to the shoulder, and added ten inches to that as well. After cutting the fabric, I then folded it in half and sewed a loose stitch down the very center (so that I would be able to pin it straight down the back and have it even on both sides). I pinned the fabric along the spine of the mannequin, and smoothed it out. I then traced out the neckline on the fabric. Unfortunately, that was about as far as I got. We ran out of time, and there was also the problem on how to drape the cowl neck.
When draping a cowl, one needs to leave about ten inches of cloth on the inside, so that the cowl hangs, but does not fall. Because of this, when we had cut the cloth along the center, we could drape the cowl along the top of the cloth, but we wouldn't have enough cloth if we draped it along the bias (diagonally), which may produce a more dramatic cowl, like the one in my sketch, as well as have less fabric along the straps. Personally, I don't really see the difference, but if we do drape it along the bias, I would have to have a seam in the middle of the dress to add more fabric. I really don't want to do that, but I guess if I have to, I could add a belt or something. However, this would mess up my painted coral. Perhaps I can do a diagonal seam, which I would mostly paint over with the coral, and hide it. We'll see.