Sunday 11 February 2018

Pattern Cutting and Garment Construction - Weeks 3, 4 and 5

I've not been keeping up with my updates on my clothes making course, so I am grouping lessons 3, 4 and 5 together.  We're now half way through the course!  There will be a week's break for half term, then 5 more weeks to go.

I have now created a mini body with collar!

Find out all about sewing a shirt with collar, sleeve and cuff!

This is all just practise work, with cheap thin calico material, just to learn the skills we need.  This is why it's not full length, to conserve material, as it was the collar we were focused on.

Find out all about sewing a shirt with collar, sleeve and cuff!

This was made using the pattern pieces we created in week 2.  I won't try to explain how you sew the collar on the shirt, as I couldn't get my head around it until we actually did it.  However, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out - it's quite neat!  (It is even and equal as well - it's just hard to get it to behave for a photograph!)

Even though it hasn't been made to anyone's size - it was just using whatever blocks we happened to grab when we drew out the pattern on paper - I thought I'd try it on, just for fun...!

Find out all about sewing a shirt with collar, sleeve and cuff!

It makes me feel like I might be able to make myself a shirt that I can actually wear!

We then went on to start to make a sleeve with cuff and slit.  We drew up our pattern pieces (again - the arm was made shorter to conserve material).  My cuff was measured wrong somehow, so I shortened it when I was making it with the fabric - so it wasn't as long as the paper pattern piece in the end.

Find out all about sewing a shirt with collar, sleeve and cuff!

That little bit of pattern piece is the cuff slit facing.  That was a fun new skill!  You cut that little rectangle of fabric and interfacing.  You sew it to the sleeve, where you want your slit to be, with your stitching going a couple of millimetres to one side of the centre line, then angling to a point a little bit down from the top, then coming back down a couple of millimetre to the other side of the centre line.  You then cut up the middle, between the stitches, as close to the point as possible without snipping it.  You turn the facing round on itself (again - something I couldn't get my head around until I saw it!) and you end up with a nice need slit!

Find out all about sewing a shirt with collar, sleeve and cuff!

The sleeve/cuff slit came out really well actually - I'm not sure how!

The cuff gets sewn on it pretty much the same way as the collar.  There is an overlap as you can see above, for the fastening.  I don't think we are bothering with the fastening on these practise pieces.  My cuff isn't quite finished - one half of the folded fabric is sewn on, but I need to do another line of stitching around to catch the other half of the fabric which is on the inside.  I also need to sew the sleeve into the body piece.

I'm not sure if we will be continuing with that in our next lesson, or cracking on with our main wearable garment!  It feels like completing our final piece in the 5 weeks we have left is going to be tricky!

I am really pleased with how much I've been learning, though.  I'm so glad I decided to take the course!

You can read my other posts on the course here:

Week 1
Week 2




Check out my sewing projects here.


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4 comments:

  1. Oh it is too good to just being a practice piece! Well done! Can you not add something to elongate it?xxx

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    1. The fabric isn't really nice enough to wear, to be honest. But let's hope I can create an amazing garment in a nice fabric that I can wear out in public!! xxx

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  2. Maria the skill involved in that!!! Seriously, I can't even get my head around how you did that. I have yet to use interfacing; something I find equal parts amazing and terrifying because what if I iron it on wrong? (It is something you iron on ... Isn't it?). I was going to make a cape for one of my SILs weddings last year and I bought the interfacing for it, but I bought the wrong velvet (soft elasticated vs. the harder wearing velvet) and I never ended up making it. One day, my cape will be made. And it will be nowhere as impressive as this.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, interfacing is something you iron on. Well, I did for this. I think you can get some that you sew in, rather than iron on... but I might have made that up! And yeah, you have to be careful to iron it on the wrong side, or you'll get an iron covered in glue. And I do worry about what if the fabric is crinkled under it - but I think some fabrics are easier than others. The cotton shirt fabric is quite easy. The velvet sounds harder!
      I will look out for the cape, though... one day you will make it! xx

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