Time to suck it and see

The skirt itself is a doddle to make. I cut it out, adding seam allowances as I cut. There are two centre panels (cut on the fold), four side panels, four godets and two yokes (cut on the fold). I then cut the same again in some cotton batiste for lining the skirt - I know it's only a toile, but I still like it to be lined.

Then I seam the godets to the side and centre panels. All seams are pressed and top-stitched as I'm going along. I never used to bother topstitching but I have since realised that omitting this just results in a slightly shoddy looking garment.

I then attach the skirt front to the the front yoke lining, and the skirt back to the back yoke lining, feeling mightily relieved that the pieces go together after my hack job on the pattern pieces. I then seam the skirt front to the skirt back.

Next I seam the yoke front and back shells together at the sides, before attaching the yoke lining to the yoke shell, right sides together and pressing the hem of the yoke lining so that I can just top stitch it in place once I've put in the elastic at the waistband

I cut a piece of elastic to cinch in the skirt back and attach it at the top of the skirt, sandwiched between the shell and the lining. I attach it by stitching in the ditch of the side seams of the shell. It would have been a good idea to take a photo of the process, but I forgot.

I then press the top seam where the shell meets the lining, and seam the shell and lining together just under the elastic to form a casing for it. I continue the seam across the front to make a faux waistband. It would have been a good plan to attach interfacing to the front faux waistband, but I thought of it too late.

I do however remember to do another seam across the elastic casing, which makes the casing look neater and stops the elastic from rolling. On the downside, it makes the skirt virtually unalterable if you ever decide you need to replace the elastic with a longer piece to prolong wear...

Finally, I hem the skirt and it's done. It isn't as swingy as I wanted, so next time I'll put in quite a bit more flare either by cutting the panels and spreading them, or by cutting and hacking a half-circle skirt block. But the skirt is fine for everyday wear. And Laura seems to like it!

Hacking the block into a pattern

Once you've made your block, you need to put on the markings i.e. mark the Centre Front/Back and put in any foldlines or grainlines). Then trace the block onto some dressmaker's tracing paper so that you can hack into it.





















Using a hard pencil so that I only do faint lines, I mark the yoke. I want to make it about 10cm deep, so I mark 10cm onto the side and centre lines and join them freehand. I then draw a line vaguely perpendicular to the hem and yoke line, to divide the skirt into panels.

Then I mark the grain lines on each pattern piece. The grain runs down the Centre Front/Back of the skirt so I mark the grain lines exactly parallel to that line. While I'm fairly haphazard with most aspects of sewing and drafting. I always measure grain lines very carefully because if they're skew then your garment will never hang right. So measure once, measure twice and check them again before you take the scissors to the pattern. Ensure that each individual pattern piece has the grain line marked before you cut it out.



















Then I make the godet piece. There are no instructions for this in the book so I'm kind of winging it here.

So... I measure the length of the skirt from the yoke line to the hemline. It's 21cm so I draw that line on the tracing paper. I then get out my set square - I want to draw the kind of triangle that has two lengths the same - in this case, 21cm. I have no idea how to do this so I decide to take my 21cm line as the middle line of the triangle. From that, I mark two lines on either side of it each 45 degrees from the centre. I extend each line to 21cm and freehand draw a gentle arc to join them. The centre line is of course also the grain line.




















I cut out all the pieces and see how they jigsaw together. I trim the tops of the side and centre panel a little so that they are a better fit with the yoke - this is a bit 'suck it and see' but I'm hoping it will work.

Can we fix it? Erm, I think so!

In the warm light of day, the t-shirt looks no better. I try it on Laura and it doesn't improve. If there were ever a 'just plain wrong' sleeve length, these sleeves are it. And the body is way too short. That should be easy to fix so I'll deal with that first.

I could just sew a strip of co-ordinating jersey to the bottom of the top, right sides together, to create a single-layer longer body, but I think that making a faux two layer top would be prettier. So first I hem the red polka dot, using a narrow rolled hem sewn with a zig zag stitch, and s-t-r-e-e-e-t-c-h-i-n-g the hem as far as I can while sewing it. This creates a really pretty ruffled finish (called 'lettuce edge') for a stretch fabric. I then cut a wide strip of white jersey, join the two ends, and stitch it to the wrong side of the polka dot, about 5 cm up from the hem.

All I need to do is to lettuce edge the white strip as I did with the polka dot, and that will add about 6 cm to the bottom of the top. I do just that and the top already looks much better. But aaaargh! those sleeves are hideous!!!!

So... I could cut them short and re-bind them with the foldover elastic, but I suspect that this won't really help. The armhole is too easy-fitting to attractively accommodate a puff sleeve. So I decide to just cut the sleeves much much shorter, and then do the lettuce edge hem. And all of a sudden, the top has come together. It's feminine, pretty and in proportion. I really like it!

And that is the beauty of sewing with knit fabrics. It's really forgiving and endlessly adaptable. And if you use a stretch needle, and a zig-zaggy kind of stitch to sew it, it's easy to sew too. Go on - have a try!

Next, I'm going to have a try at drafting a pattern for a godet skirt with a yoke. There are only 4 measurements to be taken in order to do a skirt block, so it would be perfect for a draft-and-sew-tute. I hope you agree!

Sewing the t-shirt

I need to test out the t-shirt pattern so I'm going to 'make a toile'. This is seamstress speak for knocking up a garment from cheap fabric so that you can see if the patten actually works and what you need to do to it if it doesn't. I have some cheapish jersey that is pretty nice so if the pattern comes together the toile will be wearable.

I've cut the pieces out using a rotary cutter and a cutting board. The equipment is marginally more expensive than dressmaking scissors, but much easier and quicker to use. I've added seam allowances to the pieces as I've cut them - about 1cm to all the seams apart from the neckline, which I shall bind rather than seam, and a few centimentres to the t-shirt hem. I'm starting to think that the top might not be long enough, but I'll worry about that later.

First, I iron thin strips of lightweight interfacing to where the back shoulder seams will be. This will stablise the seams and keep the garment looking better for longer. Next I join the back and front pieces, right sides together, at the shoulder seam. USE A STRETCH NEEDLE for sewing stretch fabrics such as jersey or interlock. You can sew the seam using a straight stitch, but the seams are more likely to pucker and end up generally squiff if you do that - I always use a zig zag stitch or, even better, a stretch interlock stitch. The stretch interlock seam is sewn in a 'two steps orward, one step back' movement which keeps the seam straight and even. It sounds slow work but it's effective.

Then I press the seam allowance to the back of the top, and topstitch it with a straight stitch. I do this with all seams - it makes for a much more professional looking finish.

Next I need to bind the neckline. I was going to cut some ribbing for this, but couldn't find any with good enough stretch and recovery (i.e. pull the ribbing across its grain, and see how quickly it returns to its normal position) so I've used some foldover elastic instead. The actual sewing of

this is very different from sewing ribbing or jersey binding, but the technique for working out how much you need and attaching it evenly is pretty similar. So, first I work out how much I need. I measure the neckline - only roughly because I'm using the ruler on my sewing table (can't be bothered to find a measuring tape). I then cut some elastic to 75% of that measurement. I mark the approximately halfway point, and then the quarter points. I do the same on the neckline and pin the elastic to the binding, matching the marks.

I sewed the foldover elastic using the same technique I'd use for sewing ribbing. I sewed the elastic to the right side of the neckline using a narrow-width medium-length zig-zag stitch, stretching the elastic as far as I could while sewing it. I then folded the elastic over to the wrong side of the neckline, and top-stitched it with a straight stitch, stretching both the jersey and the elastic slightly. The experienced seamstress will know that this is not a great technique for sewing foldover elastic - it worked on this occasion, but I was lucky to get away with it. Generally for sewing foldover elastic, I would sandwich the fabric between the folded elastic and just do one seam using 3-step zig-zag. What can I say? it was late and I wasn't thinking properly.

Next I pressed the neckline and was pleased to see that although it looks very odd from the inside - red thread against brilliant white elastic, yuk! - it looks just fine from the outside. I now sew the second shoulder seam (topstitching over the elastic binding as well as the shoulder seam) and then start on the sleeves.

First I attach foldoever elastic to the hem of the sleeves, using the correct 3-step zig zag technique. This gathers the hem nicely into the elastic binding.

I then mark the middle top of the sleeves and sew a line of long straight stitch around the top of the sleeve, starting from and ending at about 5 cm in from the sides. I pull on the bobbin threads to gather the top of the sleeve - this makes the sleeve puff up. I then pin the marked top of sleeve to the shoulder seam of the armhole, right sides together, and arrange the gathering so that the sleeve fits nicely onto the armhole. I do this for both sleeves and then sew the sleeves to the armholes using the useful stretch interlock stitch. This is the most fiddly bit of the t-shirt but it's worth spending the time to get it right.

When I've finished, I seam up the right sides of the t-shirt to the armhole, and keep going to join the two edges of the sleeve. Repeat on the other side of the t-shirt. it's then that I realise a number of pattern errors: the sleeve is miles too long and the body could do with being another 10 cm longer. These can be fixed: what could be more tricky is that the easy-fitting t-shirt style does not lend itself well to a puff sleeve! The sleeves look very odd and I think I'll leave it for tonight and see if I can dream up a solution.

Part 2: Messing around with the sleeve block

I'm using tracing paper to transfer the sleeve pattern block onto a working pattern that I can hack into. I won't cut out the pattern blocks until I know that they're good to use - that way, I can amend them if necessary. Once I've cut out the traced sleeve, I can start cutting it up.


Here you can see that I've sliced the sleeve lengthwise into four pieces so as widen it ready to be gathered.











And here, I've sticky taped the pieces, with 1 cm between each, to some more tracing paper. I've traced around it, adding 1 cm or so at top and bottom. You can just see the new cutting line.

I can now cut out the three pattern pieces and I'm just about done. I'm not going to add seam allowances to the pattern - the European patterns that I mostly use come without seam allowances so I now prefer to just add the allowance as I cut. I also won't try and make a pattern yet for the neck binding - my plan is to sew the t-shirt together, find some binding fabric, and then working out how long the binding piece should be.


Next step - making the t-shirt! Sewing with jersey fabrics is something that I was scared of doing until very recently, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's easier than I thought. Well, it could hardly have been harder... So I'm going to do the t-shirt as a kind of tutorial.

Pattern-cutting Part 1 - Drafting the block. And it really is easier with a calculator

I've been setting up a home business making cloth nappies, hats and clothing for children. Although I can sell clothes made from Farbenmix, I want a better range of basics, which means I need to draft my own patterns. So.... this is where I start.

I want to make Laura a crew-neck close-fitting t-shirt with puff sleeves, and I find that I don't have a pattern for one. (How can this be? marvels my DH, eyeing the pile of patterns and magazines in the den).

I've faffed about trying to put together three Ottobre patterns to get the one I want, and was only moderately successful - it took some remedial hand-sewing at the shoulders and even the addition of some poppers to make the t-shirt wearable. A proper seamstress would shudder to see it so please, proper seamstresses, don't look at the picture on the left!

So, now I'm going to have another try, using my new copy of Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Children's Wear and Babywear. It's been my bedtime reading for a few weeks (which is not probably something to put in a first post, but it's best you know the kind of person you're dealing with here...) Now I'm going to see if I can put it into practice.

Winifred tells me that a calculator is a necessity to take the tricky calculations out of the proceedings. Now that's a bit scary hearing for someone with only CSE 1 in maths. But once I've sat down with the ruler (a bit bendy but it'll do for now), pencils, squared paper, pencil sharpener, and make a start, it all starts to fall into place and the calculator is definitely a necessity. After a false start, I realise that it's easier to do the calculations before marking the dots on the paper, rather than doing the maths, making the mark, doing the maths, you get the idea.

Once I've got that taped, I do the close-fitting t-shirt and realise that it's probably going to be slightly too close-fitting for comfort since I'm not going to be using super-stretchy jersey fabric. So I do the basic one next. I'm using the standard measurements for size 92 (age 2) rather than doing Laura's actual measurements. Firstly because it's hard enough getting the child to pose for a picture, never mind taking 7 or so measurements, secondly because size 92 is a fairly good fit for her and I doubt if I could do much better - certainly not on a first attempt, and thirdly because my aim is eventually to sell these t-shirts and I'd rather only cut one pattern block for size 92.

The final pattern blocks look OK. I would have liked more help from Winifred on drawing the necklines and armholes, given that these are where I tend to go wrong when I'm amending commercial patterns, but we'll just have to see.

Tomorrow I'll try to turn the sleeve block into a puff sleeve pattern. Fortunately, Winifred has step by step instructions for that too.