Tips and Tricks

the Button Up Refashion Swap

May 17, 2012 · 23 comments

Friends, here it is! If you follow me on Facebook – which you should – this is the project I posted a little while ago. And this is also the project that I was talking about with my thoughts on refashioning. I’ll admit, I’m a little hooked on refashioning now. Can’t say that I’m really good at it, but I can see the value and sometimes the project can be really easy, like this one I’m about to show you how to do, and it can give you a little boost in your sewing if you need one. And as you know, I’ve needed one.

So about this Blogger Refashion. I was contacted by Miranda of One Little Minute awhile back asking me if I wanted to participate. The premise was simple – refashion a men’s shirt for a blogger that was assigned to you. I couldn’t have been luckier in my partner who was Jen of Grainline (an awesome seamstress and proprietress of downloadable sewing patterns and wearable beauties) because she has nearly identical measurements to mine. Yay! That meant that I could at least try on the refashion and see how it would all work out! Yay! Anyway, there are 10 of us in all and we’re all posting tutorials for our refashions today, so don’t miss out. Here’s the list:

Grainline Studio
Lazy Saturdays
Cotton & Curls
Megan Nielsen Designs
I Still Love You
One Little Minute
MadMim
See Kate Sew
Adventures in Dressmaking

Alright, so let’s discuss what I decided to do for my refashion. I opted to make a box blouse, basically two rectangles sewn together with room left for your arms and head. Yup. It’s so easy, you might just chuckle. Seriously. Amy from Yellow Bird gave me the idea, which by the way, she’s made several and you should head on over to see them because then they’ll give you ideas for what to do if you want to make yourself one. Now here’s the thing, I wanted to keep this simple. I wanted this project to be something you could really whip up in a jiffy and all without the use of a pattern. Something that WILL fit you, because box blouses fit everyone! Got it? Yeah. That’s exactly the idea. So let’s just start with the Box Blouse formula.

The Box Blouse Formula
Width = Hip or Bust measurement (whichever is larger) + 2 – 4 (more if you like) inches of wearing ease + seam allowances (side seams)
Length = the measurement from the shoulder seam to the hem of the finished garment (take this one when wearing a shirt!) + shoulder seam allowance + hem allowance (I like to have at least a good inch)
Note: You’ll need the 4 inches of wearing ease if you are doing a box blouse that doesn’t have a button up front – this to get it over your head, or you can always add a zipper to the side seam if you want to go with less ease!

Not bad right? Here, let me show you what this all would be for me:
My Width = My hip cuz its bigger than the bust (39″) + 2 inches wearing ease + seam allowances (1/2 for each side seam) = 42″
My Length = 25″ from shoulder seam to hem + shoulder seam allowance (1/2″) + hem allowance (1″) = 26.5″

Now before you go a cuttin out, divide your Width by 4. Now go and cut out two rectangles that equal your width divided by 4 x your length, on the fold of the fabric. For me, I would cut two rectangles that are 10.5″ wide x 26.5″ long. Friends, this could not be simpler. Are you with me? If you too would like to refashion a men’s shirt into a box blouse, I recommend deconstructing the shirt by cutting each of the elements out like the shirt fronts, back, (I cut off the yoke) the sleeves. Then cut the back panel of the shirt on the fold and cut the shirt fronts with the center front buttoned up as the foldline.

Stitching it up!
All that’s left is to stitch up your box blouse and maybe add a few details here and there. Stitch your shoulder seams leaving enough room for your head to fit through or if you’re refashioning a men’s shirt, you can opt for a neckline that’s smaller than your head as you’ll have the button up portion at the front. From there stitch the side seams leaving enough room for your arms to fit through and move about in comfortably. Hem the neckline, sleeve and the actual hem at the bottom of the garment. So easy right?

Deconstructing My Refashion
There are details you can add to give your blouse a little edge too. I thought, for a good example I would deconstruct the blouse I refashioned to give you some ideas. I used the neckline of a sewing pattern to create a sweet rounded neckline. You too could also take the neckline from a favorite sewing pattern or even an actual garment. I also added bias tape, made from the sleeve of the original shirt, to finish off the neckline plus give it a sweet little tie bow.

For a little more fit, I took in little pleats at the natural waistline. Just tacked those down with a fine zigzag stitch.

At the hemline, since I didn’t have quite enough fabric to do a full 10.5″ width for each of the rectangles, I thought “Oh Well!” and left little open vents at the side seams. I’ve found with refashions that as you go along you make constant changes to the base of the garment, which doesn’t have to be a bad thing. More of an inventive fix, right?

I took off the old buttons and replaced them with new ones and also added a few more buttons & buttonholes to keep the blouse from gaping you know where. And finally I removed the pocket, but could easily have added another more stylish one.

Now Friends, how’s that for easy? How’s that for getting your sewing mojo on the level again? What do you think of my refashion? Like it? Wanna make one for yourself? You should! So easy, and really such a great blouse to jump into summer with. Jen will be give you a fashion show of it next week, in the meantime, I’m working on another for myself.

On the hunt for another refashion….
Sunni

PS ~ We’ll all be showing off the refashions that were made for us next week! Suzannah from Adventures in Dressmaking did mine and its delightful – I really can’t wait to show it to you! Yay! Here’s a schedule of when you’ll see us in our button up refashions:
Monday, May 21st ~ Lizzie of Cotton & Curls, Krista of Lazy Saturdays
Tuesday, May 22nd ~ Sunni of A Fashionable Stitch, Kate of See Kate Sew
Wednesday, May 23rd ~ Suzannah of Adventures in Dressmaking, Miranda of  One Little Minute
Thursday, May 24th ~ Miriam of  MadMim, Melissa of  I Still Love You
Friday, May 25th ~ Megan of Megan Nielsen Design, Jennifer of Grainline Studio

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How to: Create Armscye Princess Seams

April 18, 2012 · 18 comments

For my upcoming wrap dress, I decided to draft armscye princess seams for the back bodice (in plain old english, this means that the princess seam originates from the armhole). Formerly, I’ve never really been fond of princess seams mostly because I just never really gave them a chance I think. But times change and I’ll be….darned if I were to say that I’m one of those people who get stuck in fashion ruts. I mean, princess seams are timeless, so its only apropos that I give them a fightin chance. This really isn’t a hard technique, so I thought I would put together a little tutorial on how to do it. Before you jump into this tutorial, make sure you’ve gone over How to: Move a Dart as this is a bit of a follow up from that. So now, are you ready to give your favorite TNT (tried’n'true – believe me, I had no idea what this term meant until a few weeks ago) pattern a facelift?

Back Bodice

Step 1 ♥ Let’s start with the back bodice first, because its the easiest – which is not to say this is hard, so don’t be scared. First thing to do is draw in some grainlines in the areas I’ve given you above. Keep the grainlines parallel to the center back. Now, I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t do this first step, so the next few photos are going to be grainline-less, but please don’t miss this first step like I did. It’s important that you don’t get all grainline confused.

Step 2 ♥ Now we need to draw in the princess seam. From the tip of the dart (the top, pointy end) to the middle-ish section of the armscye draw in a line. Then add some notches which will help you when sewing this bad boy up later on.

Step 3 ♥ Now you’re going to take your paper scissors and cut out the dart and cut from the tip of the dart to the armscye where you just marked your new seam line.

Step 4 ♥ Take your french curve and curve out the pointy parts (this happens to be at the top of the dart) of the new princess seam. You’ll be cutting a sliver from the Side Back and you’ll be adding just a little paper to the Upper Back.

Step 5 ♥ Add seam allowances to your freshly drafted back bodices. See, not so bad right? PPPSSsshawwww! You could do this in your sleep! [click to read more…]

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How to: Move a Dart

April 17, 2012 · 23 comments

This is an easy peasy trick and if you’ve ever dabbled in a little bit of pattern drafting, you’ve probably done this several times. Darts are basically excess fabric pick-ups that, when sewn together, create shape for your curves - you know, like for your bustline, waistline or hipline. They can also be a great way to incorporate design lines – think princess seams, the tutorial that’s coming up tomorrow – into a garment. I really wanted to be able to show you how to create armscye princess seams as I’m doing the same for my wrap dress, but first you need to know how to move a dart. Let’s get started!

I’m going to show you how to move a dart on a front bodice, but this technique can be used for other parts of a basic sloper/TNT (tried’n'true) pattern too – any where there is a dart, you can move it! Let your imagination run wild.

Step 1 ♥ Find your apex. What’s the apex? It’s going to be the middle/shifting point of the dart. For our front bodice, its right square in the middle of the breast. Many commercial patterns already have this marked for you, but if not, find your apex and mark the apex with a circle.

Step 2 ♥ Redraw the dart lines to the apex. Most, if not all darts, tend to end about 1 – 2 inches shy of the apex. To move the dart we need to extend the dart lines to the apex. To do that, you’ll simply take a ruler and shimmy it up to a dart leg end (the fat end of the dart) and along and up to the apex and pencil it in. Easy right?

Step 3 ♥ Pick a spot for the new dart. This is where it gets fun! From the apex, you can shift a dart to pretty much anywhere. I’m going to move the shoulder dart here to the armscye because I’m going to show you how to draft a princess seam from there, but you can put the new dart anywhere.

Step 4 ♥ Cut out the dart. Then cut the new dart line all the way to the apex.

Step 5 ♥ Shift the old dart closed and tape it up. And Voila! You’ve moved a dart! Fill in the new dart with some paper and tape. Shorten the dart back to where it was – opposite of Step 2, within 1 – 2 inches of the apex and then cut the dart from the paper after you’ve folded it into position. From here, true up the rest of your seam lines if needed. Not so bad, right?

Tomorrow I’ll continue this little creative exercise with how to draft a princess seam. Have you ever moved a dart? Ever wanted to dabble a bit in pattern drafting? I’ll admit, if you were to ask me about pattern drafting several years back, when I got back into sewing, I would have instantly said no. But over the years, I’ve developed a keen interest in it and have found that its more of a continuation into this wonderful enormous world of sewing. I find it rather fascinating and to be honest, extremely liberating. Being able to dissect that latest dress I spotted whilst window shopping is awfully fun.

Ciao friends!
Sunni

{ 23 comments }

Refashioned Post Updates

April 9, 2012 · 4 comments

Hey friends! I spent a good deal of last week making little pencil skirts so that I could update my pencil skirt w/vent tutorials. When I say little, I mean I cut out the BurdaStyle Jenny skirt at 60% and proceeded to make up little skirts like I was making them for a doll or something. It was fun and sooooooooooooo much easier to photograph. I’ve revised a ton of stuff there including the wording and such and I’ve fully revamped the sewing section of the lining. If you’ve already tried your hand at these particular tutorials before, please have another look at them as a few of the instructions have changed a bit. You’ll find the links in the Sewing School, of course, but you can click on the thumbnails below and hop on over to each of the tutorials too. They are in order from left to right. Updated and freshened, hopefully you’ll find them useful, if not at this point in time, sometime in the future. You can pop me an email anytime if you’ve got questions and I’ll try to get them answered. Enjoy!

    

 

 

 

 

xoxo,
Sunni

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Sloper Sweetness – Pt. I

March 8, 2012 · 35 comments

I’ve wanted to talk about my experience with my bodice sloper since Christmas – when I finally got down to brass tacks and perfected the fit for it – and have been at a loss as to where to begin. I’ve decided to do a series of posts on this subject. Now, I’m not an expert on this subject, but hey, it never hurts to hear this stuff from someone who’s tried it right?

Today I wanted to talk about what a sloper is and how to go about getting one. Plus this is a great way to get input from you so that everyone gets more than just my opinion here. First, what is a sloper? A sloper (also known as a basic block) is a basic pattern from which other patterns can be made. There can be many different types of slopers, for instance you can have a bodice sloper, a sleeve sloper, and pants sloper. Within those categories you can even narrow it down even more and create slopers for various different types of say bodices – bodices with 2 darts and 1 dart, a knit bodice sloper and the like. Does that make sense? It’s the building block, so to speak. And hey, if you’re new to this and you feel that this might be a bit over your head right now, don’t worry – I did too when I got back into sewing several years ago. I’ve acquired a lot of knowledge from textbooks, blogs, friends who sew and trial and error.

Now how do you go about making a sloper, getting one, fitting one etc.? There are a few ways and I would be remiss to say that one way of doing it is better than the other. Firstly, you can draft your own. You can purchase a pattern drafting book and go from there. Currently I own Patternmaking Made Easy by Connie Crawford and Building Patterns by Suzy Furrer – both are excellent and high recommendations from me! They’ll take you through all the steps, techniques, and measurements to create your own slopers/blocks. To go along with pattern drafting books, I feel that a fitting book is a good companion as the two arts go hand in hand. Just because you draft the sloper does not mean it will automatically fit you. I recommend Fit For Real People or The Perfect Fit. Both have been indispensible standbys for me.

You can also perfect the fit on a basic fitting shell and use it as a basic sloper and even a way to create more slopers. Two amazing books to own on this way of doing it are the Adele Margolis’ texts How to Make Clothes Fit & Flatter and Design Your Own Dress Patterns. The former takes you through great fitting techniques to get a perfect fit for a sloper, the latter gives you a step by step guide to create your own patterns from your sloper.

Don’t have the money to purchase a bunch of texts? I know – its tight all around these days. There are some great tutorials on the web too! Have a gander at this one and this one from Madalynne and I also recall seeing several rounds of instructions on BurdaStyle from various members on how to do this too!

Next, you’ll want to splurge on a few tools, if you don’t have them already, to rip apart, slice and dice and do some nasty stuff to your pattern. Even if I’ve drafted the thing myself, I find I still have to make alterations and adjustments.
✂ First things first – paper! Can I just say, sometimes its hard to find the right pattern paper. I’m such a snob about certain papers and I’ve tried a ton! A great place to start is in the kitchen – I had a round with wax paper once, but I hate that you can’t write on it very well. Love parchment paper – but only for very final versions of a sloper I plan to use for altering as it doesn’t take tape well. Otherwise, using parchment works really well if you intend to use your sloper to adjust patterns, then you just have to lay your sloper over the top of a pattern and see where to go about making the adjustments. Recently I purchased this fantastic roll of paper and paper holder/dispenser from IKEA. The paper rolls are only $5 – best paper ever! I love it. There’s also pattern paper – I can’t find this stuff locally and finally I just stopped looking for it! And I’ve never wanted to pay shipping for it! Aw well! For the final pattern – I use oak tag found at a specialty framing store nearby. If you plan to pattern draft, having a sloper in oak tag is lovely.
✂ Rulers! What would pattern drafting and slicing and dicing be without them? I highly recommend a hip curve, a yardstick and plain old straight ruler.
✂ Pencils. Paper scissors. And I’ve also found a tracing wheel handy, which I use to trace off a pattern or sloper onto that IKEA paper which takes the tracing wheel very well. A rotary mat, unless you have access to actual pattern paper, otherwise this makes a great substitute for not having that. One of those cardboard cutting tables would do the trick too! Don’t forget tape – I just use scotch tape.
Last but not least, you’ll need muslin to mock up several versions of your sloper and get that fit perfect!

Alright! Now, that I’ve gone on and on, what do you say? A lot of info for one post, I know. Have you made your own sloper? Do you use it? Ideas or tips to share? What about your tool chest? What are your recommedations?

If nothing else friends, I hope this gives you an idea of where to start with getting your hands a little itchy for making your own sloper. I’ll have more installments on slopers coming up and how I’ve used them to alter patterns, which can minimize the making of muslins and that is the best news of all! Yay! Plus I’ll go over what I’ve started with here and give you things I’ve done that are much more in depth. Ok? Ok.

Sloping out of here,
Sunni

{ 35 comments }

a Cheater’s Guide to Setting in a Sleeve

February 27, 2012 · 67 comments

It’s a brand new week! Yay! Friends, I’m sorry I missed Stitching Spotlights last week. I missed a lot of things really, including sleep. I had serious insomnia – something I’ve not had quite like that before. I somehow managed 6 hours of sleep between 3 nights and finally I broke down last Thursday and just tried to sleep for a day. It was awful! Gah! But, now I’m sleeping, so who knew? Crazy.

For my Sweetheart Blouse, I set the sleeves in differently than any pattern directions have ever told me. Awhile back, I took apart a RTW shirt for Mr. S and refit it for him and found that it had been constructed differently. In fact it had been constructed more brilliantly believe it or not, with a lot more maneuverability.

So, the next time you try your hand at setting in a sleeve, have a go at this method. First leave the side seams on the bodice and the underarm seams of the sleeve un-stitched. You’ll need to have your bodice front and back stitched together at the shoulders. Also have your easing or gathering stitches on the sleeve ready.

Now, pin your sleeve to the armscye. Stitch. Press. Finish the seam allowances. Do your thing. Now you can stitch the side seams and underarm sleeve seam in one fell swoop.

Now, hit the “that was soooooo much easier” button in metaphysical space and give yourself a pat on the back. None of this ridiculous sewing a hole into another hole which is so crazy hard to maneuver – at least for me. Plus I get way less puckers doing it this way (if any at all) and it’s way easier to press. Take that sleeve. Take. That.

your sewing partner in crime,
Sunni

{ 67 comments }

Two Ways to Thinner Seams – a Sewing Diet

February 16, 2012 · 20 comments

I’ve been using my fair share of thick fabrics lately. The denim shirtdress, the Green with Envy shirtdress and my Sew Grateful Skirt. Needless to say, thick fabrics can a be a beast to maneuver unless you grade and trim your seams. What’s all this grading and trimming you say? Here let me show you.

Grading a seam is making all the layers of the seam allowance a different width so that when the whole of the seam is pressed into place it doesn’t create a bulky ridge on the right side of the fabric. Having said that, you might wonder where and when to grade. I know I did for a very long time and found that I never graded any seam because I felt that doing so weakened that area of the garment – having made the seam allowances shorter, I had introduced weak areas that could fray easier and then cause a blow out somewhere. But over the years I’ve come to realize that grading is necessary for a beautiful finish and unless you plan to put your final garment through a lot of serious, rigorous washing a graded seam is just as strong as an ungraded one.

Now the thing to remember is that not all seams are graded. Seams that need to be graded, especially when using a thick fabric, are ones that are pressed to one side or sandwiched inside areas of the garment that you can’t even see or get to from the inside (like in a waistband facing).  Let me give you an example. I didn’t grade the seam allowances for the skirt side seams of my Green with Envy shirtdress. Those are pressed open, like a traditional seam. But I did grade the seam where the pocket lining is connected to the dress because this seam allowance is a) pressed in one direction and b) sandwiched in between layers of the garment. Make sense?

So how do you grade a seam? You’ll start by sewing your seam and then its time to trim. Depending on how many layers I’m dealing with I like to trim to 1/8″, 1/4″, and 1/2″. If I’ve only got two layers of fabric that’s going to be pressed to one side, I start by trimming the first layer to 1/2″ and leave the other seam allowance at 5/8″. If I’ve got 3 layers of fabric then I would trim the first at 1/4″, the second at 1/2″ and leave the last at 5/8″. Make sense?

This next little trick is probably the best trick of all. It’s probably something that you all do anyway too, but it’s not something I started doing until a little over a year ago. I feel it makes a huge difference in dealing with bulky fabrics, but also in dealing with any fabric as I do it on every project that I sew now.

This trick is applied to seams that end up intersecting one another. Think setting in a shirt sleeve – you have two (sometimes more) seams in the armscye/bodice area and one seam (sometimes more) in the sleeve. After sewing the intersecting seams together, trim the corners of each seam at an angle (creates an inverted V). I find it especially fabulous in seams like the side seam of a skirt that attaches to a waistband that also has a side seam. Leaving the seams un-trimmed, will create 4 layers of bulk!!!  Clipping that little inverted V will leave you with much less bulk. This trick also works on french seams too. Pretty impressive huh?

Now, how’s that for working with a bit of heavyweight fabric? Now you can maneuver them like a pro!

xoxo,
Sunni

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Inside Look at the Dress that Nearly Killed Me!

January 18, 2012 · 24 comments

Many of you requested to see the inner workings and details of things I had mentioned but did not show pictures of for my shirtdress. I am more than happy to comply! Yay!

First of all, the whale print flannel that interlines the skirt. I’m quite sure that its a baby print. No matter. It adds some warmth to this little ditty of a dress. Apologies as it does look a little worse for the wear – the indigo dye from the denim did bleed a little as I was working on it and I’ve worn this dress about 5 times since its first appearance in my closet last week! I also used the flannel as the interfacing too. It was used in the collar and the buttonhole placket.

For the placket that contains the buttons, I used petersham ribbon to stabilize. I’ve seen this before on RTW garments and thought it would be a fun touch to add here. It’s just a strip of the 3/4″ petersham, that runs the length of where the buttons begin and end. I think for my next dress I’m going to use it for the whole length of the placket though. It just adds a little pop of something unexpected. There’s petersham also in the hem, where I used my handy dandy tutorial for hemming a garment with petersham.

Let’s see, I think that about does it as far as the details you didn’t see. I’m actually trying to up the ante on inner construction details this year. I’ve been scouting out some RTW techniques and I love seeing sweet contrasts like piping, ribbons, interlinings and the like on the inside. It makes wearing the garment even that much more fun, I think, plus its a great way to use up scraps. What do you think? Do you think inner construction details count?

smooches,
Sunni

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Gettin My Fix

December 8, 2011 · 15 comments

I know exactly what you’re thinking. That skirt….again. I know. I just couldn’t leave the dumb thing alone. I was wearing it just a few days ago and feeling absolutely, completely dissatisfied. I kept thinking things like, ” boy, I really fouled this thing up” and “I thought I was good at sewing” and “where did I go wrong?” Kind of felt like I was talking to my own kid, you know. After I had had just about enough of that, I decided to march myself right home, take off that skirt and get to fixin. I aided my thought processes along the way by cheering myself into thinking things like “I can do this” and “its not so bad, I’m sure I can fix it” and “I am a great seamstress, just you wait. Skirt, you do not have the best of me yet.”

On Monday, I mentioned what I didn’t love about the skirt. The biggest offender was that dratted hem and the lining issue. So today, you’re in for it, because I’ve got another petersham tutorial. I’m not going to tell you what I did on the original hem. Oh, it’s just so lame, I just can’t. But I will tell you that I did try horsehair braid to start with. Now, I love horsehair braid. LOVE it! I put it in my circle skirt and it’s brilliant. But on a half circle skirt, well at least on me, it looked kind of weird. I don’t know. It was bulging out in all the wrong places and it was just too stiff. So I had tried that. Didn’t work. After coming home on Tuesday and feeling like a failure at a simple skirt, I remembered that you can use petersham in hems. I mean, I was going to show this tutorial anyway, but now you get it a whole bunch sooner because it was absolutely necessary to put it in this skirt. Let’s get on with it then and I’ll show you what I mean.

Step 1 ✂ Measure your skirt hem and find out just how much petersham you’ll need. I used about 3 1/4 yards for this skirt. And here, I’m using the 3/4″ cream petersham from the shop. You’ll find that this type of hem treatment is especially good for a-line and circle-ish skirts as it kind of, almost, does the same thing as horsehair braid. It’s not so stiff though and works nice when you need a little more body and less rigidity.

Step 2 ✂ Next you need to thoroughly wet the petersham with warm-ish water. I just run mine under the tap… Dry with a towel and go turn on your iron. When your iron is nice and piping hot you’re going to press the petersham. Now, you’re not just going to press it willy nilly. No, you’ve got to take your little hand along one edge of the petersham and pull that edge (pull hard) as you press down with the iron (steam’s real nice here too) with your other hand. Do it in a sort of circular shape like the photo below. You’re going to do that for the entire length of the petersham. If that’s not sweat shop labor, I just don’t know what is. Phew…

What you end up with is one edge that starts to curl a little from being pulled along one edge. It’s kind of neat actually. Kind of like magic, and we’re all into that around here, right? Yup.

Step 3 ✂ Now we need to add the petersham to the skirt hem. You’ll apply the lettuce like wavy edge (the one you just pulled) to the skirt. Pin it to the right side of the fabric, stitch it, and you know, do your thing. Once you’re done with that, you’re going to flip the petersham up into the hemline. Pin that in place and topstitch or slipstitch into place. Give all that a good press and just like that You. Are. Done.

And just behold the “fixed” skirt. Isn’t it a lovely? Oh dear! You can’t even believe how thrilled I am to wear it again. Oh, and I also fixed the lining too. I think I was even more unhappy with that than the original hem treatment. I shortened it just a little more than normal as, like I’ve stated before, I cut the lining on the straight grain and the skirt on the bias. But then I added those wonderful attacher thingies. I have no idea what their real name is (but if you do, leave it in the comments). There is a rhyme to their madness, I must admit. I mean, I know you can just attach serged thread, but I went fancy and did them by hand. I attached them to the side and the front seam allowances and low and behold! they keep the lining from peeking out when you sit down. I know. You’re way impressed. He. he. he.

Thanks for tuning it in here. Everything is all better now and very much as it should be. I might even wear the skirt to bed just to show it how much I love it. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ May all your flops magically fix, real soon.

xoxo,
Sunni

{ 15 comments }

How to: Draft a Vent Lining

December 7, 2011 · 16 comments

Hey friends! Please note that as of 4/6/2012, this tutorial has been refashioned, just a bit. The instructions and photos have all been updated to produce a much more professional result. If this is your first time visiting this tutorial, read on, if this is your second or third time (or 4th or 5th) give a read through the material as some of it has changed a bit.

This is the next step in perfecting a pencil skirt, in my opinion. Giving it a lining. To line a skirt that has a vent, we need to take in special consideration for a few things. Adding a vent, in my opinion, is cake. It’s this issue of the lining that’s a beast! For clarification, I’ve actually done line drawings here (please don’t judge my artwork too harshly) plus there are extra tips to make the sewing easier and the final result more professional. My artwork is nothing special, but I think it will do the trick. I think you’ll agree, that once you’ve perfected a vented and lined pencil skirt, it’s one of those “go-to” patterns that you will most likely revisit again and again. So, break out your pencil skirt pattern and let’s draft a fabulous lining for a vented skirt. Here we go:

Step 1 ✂ First of all, you’ll need a pencil skirt pattern that has a seam in the place where you want the vent and if your pattern doesn’t come with a vent, you’ll need to create one (that tutorial is located here). Here we are looking at the back pattern pieces. To get these, you’ll need to trace off two of the back pattern piece, mirror imaging each other, just like I have here. Now, to clarify, I’m only going to show the skirt back sections here (because they are the devils that are hardest to understand), but you’ll want to trace off the front skirt panel to create a full lining pattern too. There will be a few more instructions for the Front Lining, but no pictures. And yes, there will be a quiz at the end, just to make sure you read this and not just looked at the photos. Label the left “Left Side Back Lining” and the right “Right Side Back Lining.” You also need to add 2 sets of notches. The first set of notches is at the zipper stop notch – just a notch indicating where the zipper ends) and a second set of notches where the vent stitching needs to end. This notch happens 5/8″ from the edge of the vent extension.

Step 2 ✂ Now it’s time to start cutting and slashing a little. These next few steps help the lining hang better giving a much more professional result than merely cutting a replica of the skirt pattern for the lining. Since we’re dealing with a rather fitted style, we need just a bit more room for everything at certain points of strain, like the seat and the hips. There are two things that we need to do first to both the Front Lining and the Left & Right Back Lining panels. First, mark the darts and turn them into tucks. There is nothing really special about this alteration, just know that instead of sewing a dart you’ll sew down from the dart legs about 2 inches, creating a tuck instead of a dart. Next you need to widen the hips. Below the seam allowance at the top of the skirt side edge, give yourself a 7 – 9 inch window and with the aid of a hip or french curve, widen the hipline by 1/8″ of an inch. I know, seems like a silly amount, but remember you need to do these first two steps on the Front Lining panel as well. It will give you just a little more ease in your hips so that when you sit down or bend over, the lining doesn’t strain, rip or distort.

OK, now for the part that only deals with the Left & Right Back panels. Since the lining is attached to the skirt at the back vent, there is a tendency, I’ve noticed, for the lining to hike the skirt section up in that area. To facilitate for this and the added strain of sitting down, you’ll need to extend the back sections by 1/4″. To do this, slash the pattern above the vent extension and in the middle of the skirt in a rectangular formation. Slide that section down 1/4″ and tape in place. Be sure to blend the newly formed hemline once finished.

 Step 3 ✂ Alright. Not so bad, right? We’re almost done here. Now for those of you who have added or sewn a vent in a skirt before, let me draw your attention to the fact that the extension is kind of rigid, right? I mean, its got some sharp angles – as it should.  To make the sewing of this 10,000 times easier all we need to do is round off the angle where the center back seam meets the vent extension seam and the end of the vent extension itself – Note: this is only for the lining pattern, not for the shell pattern. With your french curve in hand, just round out those two sharp edges. Make sure to keep the notches in place. That’s a must. Keep track of those notches. One more thing here: the biggest concern here is that vent extension only extends from the edge of the seam by 1 1/4 inches (3.2 centimeters) and that the angle of the top edge of the vent extension is a true 45 degree angle. Both of these elements make for sewing this thing up alot easier.

Step 4 ✂ Last step! Yay! For the Right Side Back Lining piece, we’ve got to invert the vent extension now. Lay the Left Side Back Lining panel over the top of the Right Side Back Lining panel. Line up the center back seams and the hemline and trace the vent extension area onto the Right Side Back Lining panel. Don’t join the panels along the center back seamline/allowance, just meet up the patterns along the center back so that you have a seam allowance for the inverted vent. Absolutely positively make sure that you’ve kept the notches in place. Okay? Sewing it is such a cinch with the notches. Way cinchier than trying to figure out where to start and stop the seam – yeah, I’ve already done that one. Now cut away the inverted extension from the Right Side Back Lining panel. And there you go!

Now, just a quick recap of what we’ve done. You will need to: Trace off two separate skirt back pieces for the lining (and one for the skirt front too!); transform darts to tucks; widen the hips; lengthen the vent extension; round off the sharp angles of the vent extension; and lastly invert the Right Side Back Lining vent extension.

Enjoy!

xoxo,
Sunni

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