{"id":2928,"date":"2011-02-12T07:24:13","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T20:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2011-02-12T08:00:06","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T21:00:06","slug":"working-on-a-dress-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/2011\/02\/12\/working-on-a-dress-design\/","title":{"rendered":"working on a dress design"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thank you all for your great comments on the rainbow dress design<\/a> yesterday. There were some very carefully considered responses, and I enjoyed working through your reasoning with you. I really appreciate the thought that went into the answers. Its been fascinating reading of others’ points of view.<\/p>\n

Last night after the girls had settled in bed, I pulled out the dress design and got to work. The dress is going to be a surprise for the Rainbow Child for her birthday. I’ve asked her if she’d like a rainbow dress (yes!) and she’s tried on the muslin for a fitting, but that’s all she’s going to know about it before she opens her birthday present on the day!<\/p>\n

The TR<\/a> (Transformation, Reconstruction) process which I am basically using for this design is an interesting one. First, you make the basic dress (a muslin) of your choosing in plain, cheap fabric. I just used some white stuff I had lying around, left over from something else. Then you put the muslin on the dressform (I don’t have one, so I got my eldest who’s about the same size to do it for me, the other day when Rainbow Child was out at gymnastics) and draw the design lines on it.<\/p>\n

Last night I worked on the curves of the design to make them more pleasing – which could have been more easily done with french curves, but I don’t have any. Then I started cutting along the lines, to make my new pattern pieces. BUT, I should have marked the notches on them BEFORE cutting! So after they were all cut out, I had to realign them all back where they’d been and mark the notches. These will help me to match up the different parts of the curves when I’m sewing it back together again, so they’re really important.<\/p>\n

Once I had them all cut up, I had to work out how much fabric I was going to need of each colour. At this stage we’re still working with Colour 1, Colour 2, Colour 3, etc as I haven’t yet made my final decision on which colour version to choose. <\/p>\n

\"dress<\/a>In working out how much fabric I’d need, I had to decide how to work with the fabric grain (the direction of the weave of the fabric). Should I just use the grain in the same way it was on the muslin, or should I change it so that it basically runs down the centre of each colour swash? I’ve worked it out so that its based on the original grain, but just in case I change my mind, I have given myself enough grace in the fabric measurements that I can change to the other way if I want. Changing the grain could make a difference to the way the dress hangs. I suspect the only way I am really going to know which works better is to give it a go.<\/p>\n

The dress is sleeveless, because I’m pretty sure my daughter is going to want to wear it all year round. I figured with sleeveless, she can wear it in summer and also put a long sleeve top under it for winter. I’m going to line the dress to make it more comfortable to wear – I don’t want all those seamlines being scratchy!<\/p>\n

Hopefully today I’ll get the chance to check out my local fabric shop for suitable fabrics. I think poplin might be a good choice, as they have lots in stock in a great range of colours. Hopefully enough to make a rainbow! Poplin is cheap, so if this whole thing is a disaster then I won’t have outlayed too much money. Its also quite a firm weave, so should work well with the many curved seams. I’ll probably line it with poplin as well, rather than a bemsilk type lining, as I think I’d rather a polycotton against a child’s skin than a polyester. I’ll need to choose a neutral colour for the lining, so that it doesn’t show through the lighter fabrics.<\/p>\n

So that’s where the dress design is at, for now. If any of you experienced dressmakers have any advice on handling the fabric grain, I’d love to hear it. Thanks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thank you all for your great comments on the rainbow dress design yesterday. There were some very carefully considered responses, and I enjoyed working through your reasoning with you. I really appreciate the thought that went into the answers. Its been fascinating reading of others’ points of view.<\/p>\n

Last night after the girls had settled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-making-stuff","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2941,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/2941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}