Red het Rokje! (Save the Skirt)
May. 10th, 2012 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzI had a pretty tough homework assignment for yesterday's practical class. It consisted of three steps, but it had a lot of work entailed in those three steps.
- Reinforce the waistline with some lining
- Remove the pattern paper and cut the basting thread that marks the pattern on the fabric, between the two layers of fabric.
- Baste the entire skirt together so it's ready for fitting.
Even though this might sound very simple, it is a lot of work, especially if your week is filled to the brim with work, preparations for the Anarquendor and crafts days. I skipped on a gardening date (OMG!) in order to get my homework done.
Reinforcing the waistline is something I've never done before. Simplicity sometimes reminds us to do this in necklines, but they use a stay-stitch so the neckline doesn't stretch. We use a piece of bias-cut lining fabric that's been pressed until it's dead. The official term we use in school is "doodgestreken bandje" (dead-pressed ribbon). Because it's on the bias but you press it stretched out, it can no longer stretch any further and your waistline will never stretch.
It was horrid to make, but that has more to do with cutting lining fabric on the bias than anything else.
I took the paper off my pattern pieces one by one, added the bias tape, and cut the basting threads between the layers of fabric carefully. Not careful enough, apparantly. At my side-front panel, halfway up the leg I cut into my fabric, cutting a neat V-shape of nearly two centimeters in my panel.
Much cursing ensued.
I was already stressed out about the whole homework - my-schedule-is-filled-to-the-brim thing and now this! I threw the damn skirt panels into my cheerful orange suitcase in desperation and flung the whole thing aside. For this I skipped a gardening opportunity?!
On Monday I had my first lesson of Pomp, but I know my teacher Helen teaches a practical class downstairs at that same moment. Since the school is in a stately house and not a large school building, it's easy to pop in and ask a question.
Helen said "You're not the first to do this" and told me not to fret. (At that point, I was way past the fretting stage and already in complete rubbish-bin,-meet-your-new-friend stage.) She told me to just glue it, leave it lying for a long time, so it would set properly and we would see on Wednesday how bad it was.
Her first reaction when she saw the pattern piece was a simple "Hm.". But at least she was optimistic. "What we will do;" she said; "is just continue on the skirt. And when it's sewn together, we will use one of these leaves here, and we take some vliesofix, and we glue the leaf over the hole and stitch it."
I nodded empathically, seeing exactly what she meant. It's a technique sometimes used in couture sewing, when you want to hide a seam in patterned fabrics or lace. You overlap the seam with a part of the pattern.
At least I could see that the interfacing I had used to glue the hole was sturdy enough to hold for now. I was set to continue on the homework assignment and I very carefully cut the rest of the basting thread between the layers, applied a few more DGB's (dead-pressed bias tape) and basted the skirt together by hand.
Jannie to my left was working on a gentlemen's coat pocket, and Mieke on the other side of the large table had basted her coat together and needed a fitting. It is so wonderful to watch them work, and so inspiring because you're not the only one basting everything together and that means you're not crazy to do it.
While Helen ripped out the sleeve while fitting Mieke in her coat, I basted and basted and basted and while Mieke redid a part of her back panel so it would fit better, Helen took me to the back and I had to put my skirt on. At this point I was very conscious of having worked during the day and not yet having had a shower... but I'm sure Helen has seen a lot of people in their underwear, and I'm not normally this body-conscious or easily embarrassed, so I ignored the nagging feeling and put on the skirt.
Which, it has to be said, fit very nearly perfectly.
Even though my hip height is not 29 but 23, the basting thread indicating the hip height line was completely level all the way around the skirt. The hem was level too. It was uncanny.
(And somewhat unflattering, but I suppose that once the skirt is sewn and everything is pressed it will look a lot better!)
It needs a slight alteration near the zip opening because there's a wee bit too much room in the waist, and I need half a centimeter of space over the curve of my butt, but other than that, no adjustments were needed. I don't think I've ever had a pattern that needed so little alterations. And the biggest compliment is that I drew it myself.
(Ok, ok, it's just a skirt, nothing too complicated, but that still is a down feather in my hat!)
If I had brought a zipper along, we could have added that straight away, but I seem to have misplaced it. This is strange, as I kept all the necessities for the skirt together in one bag. If I can't find it backI can always blame the Anarquendor crafts day, because we elves love to prance around in zippered bracers I will just pick up a new one.
New homework assignment: Check how best to sew the seams on scrap fabrics and show these to Helen on Monday. Then sew all the seams except one, so we can do the zipper next lesson.
- Reinforce the waistline with some lining
- Remove the pattern paper and cut the basting thread that marks the pattern on the fabric, between the two layers of fabric.
- Baste the entire skirt together so it's ready for fitting.
Even though this might sound very simple, it is a lot of work, especially if your week is filled to the brim with work, preparations for the Anarquendor and crafts days. I skipped on a gardening date (OMG!) in order to get my homework done.
Reinforcing the waistline is something I've never done before. Simplicity sometimes reminds us to do this in necklines, but they use a stay-stitch so the neckline doesn't stretch. We use a piece of bias-cut lining fabric that's been pressed until it's dead. The official term we use in school is "doodgestreken bandje" (dead-pressed ribbon). Because it's on the bias but you press it stretched out, it can no longer stretch any further and your waistline will never stretch.
It was horrid to make, but that has more to do with cutting lining fabric on the bias than anything else.
I took the paper off my pattern pieces one by one, added the bias tape, and cut the basting threads between the layers of fabric carefully. Not careful enough, apparantly. At my side-front panel, halfway up the leg I cut into my fabric, cutting a neat V-shape of nearly two centimeters in my panel.
Much cursing ensued.
I was already stressed out about the whole homework - my-schedule-is-filled-to-the-brim thing and now this! I threw the damn skirt panels into my cheerful orange suitcase in desperation and flung the whole thing aside. For this I skipped a gardening opportunity?!
On Monday I had my first lesson of Pomp, but I know my teacher Helen teaches a practical class downstairs at that same moment. Since the school is in a stately house and not a large school building, it's easy to pop in and ask a question.
Helen said "You're not the first to do this" and told me not to fret. (At that point, I was way past the fretting stage and already in complete rubbish-bin,-meet-your-new-friend stage.) She told me to just glue it, leave it lying for a long time, so it would set properly and we would see on Wednesday how bad it was.
Her first reaction when she saw the pattern piece was a simple "Hm.". But at least she was optimistic. "What we will do;" she said; "is just continue on the skirt. And when it's sewn together, we will use one of these leaves here, and we take some vliesofix, and we glue the leaf over the hole and stitch it."
I nodded empathically, seeing exactly what she meant. It's a technique sometimes used in couture sewing, when you want to hide a seam in patterned fabrics or lace. You overlap the seam with a part of the pattern.
At least I could see that the interfacing I had used to glue the hole was sturdy enough to hold for now. I was set to continue on the homework assignment and I very carefully cut the rest of the basting thread between the layers, applied a few more DGB's (dead-pressed bias tape) and basted the skirt together by hand.
Jannie to my left was working on a gentlemen's coat pocket, and Mieke on the other side of the large table had basted her coat together and needed a fitting. It is so wonderful to watch them work, and so inspiring because you're not the only one basting everything together and that means you're not crazy to do it.
While Helen ripped out the sleeve while fitting Mieke in her coat, I basted and basted and basted and while Mieke redid a part of her back panel so it would fit better, Helen took me to the back and I had to put my skirt on. At this point I was very conscious of having worked during the day and not yet having had a shower... but I'm sure Helen has seen a lot of people in their underwear, and I'm not normally this body-conscious or easily embarrassed, so I ignored the nagging feeling and put on the skirt.
Which, it has to be said, fit very nearly perfectly.
Even though my hip height is not 29 but 23, the basting thread indicating the hip height line was completely level all the way around the skirt. The hem was level too. It was uncanny.
(And somewhat unflattering, but I suppose that once the skirt is sewn and everything is pressed it will look a lot better!)
It needs a slight alteration near the zip opening because there's a wee bit too much room in the waist, and I need half a centimeter of space over the curve of my butt, but other than that, no adjustments were needed. I don't think I've ever had a pattern that needed so little alterations. And the biggest compliment is that I drew it myself.
(Ok, ok, it's just a skirt, nothing too complicated, but that still is a down feather in my hat!)
If I had brought a zipper along, we could have added that straight away, but I seem to have misplaced it. This is strange, as I kept all the necessities for the skirt together in one bag. If I can't find it back
New homework assignment: Check how best to sew the seams on scrap fabrics and show these to Helen on Monday. Then sew all the seams except one, so we can do the zipper next lesson.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 09:10 am (UTC)Pssst.... ik weet dat het voor school een keer moet, maar je kan deze bandjes ook kopen. ^_^
Ik plak eigenlijk altijd vliseline naadband op de taille, halslijnen eigenlijk alleen als de stof niet meewerkt.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 06:45 am (UTC)