Making a skirt...making a skirt

[cherrycity.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm planning out a knee-length skirt that I want to make, and I'm wondering if any of you sewing wonders out there could help me out with the patterning, since I'm doing this on my own.

Currently, I have 3.33 yards of black peachskin (it feels so soft...mmm) and I'm wondering how wide the skirt hem should be?

My waist is about 28 or 29 inches, depending on how I wear it.

The skirt will have six panels, and flare out at the bottom, and after all is sewn together, I am scrunching or (pleating some beforehand) to create a shirred effect.

Similar to this skirt: http://www.metamorphose.gr.jp/skirt/m-s-320216.htm
Without all the lace on the bottom (so it looks all "swoopy")
but shirred like this: http://lip-service.com/product.php?id=20-93&k=3&style_id=116&cat=LS

So can anyone help with how I should draft the patterns or have any helpful links?

How long should I make it so it ends up at the right length and fullness?

Hehe, thank you!!

Also, what should I do about fasteners?
I'm very afraid of zippers, so that's my very, very last resort. I'm thinking maybe buttons, snaps, and maybe but probabaly not elastic.
Though snap tape sometimes gapes.

Comments

[caliginous.livejournal.com]

The best way to do this would to drape a pattern. Start with a dress form (make one to your measurements using one of these techniques: http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/t00002.asp it's well worth the effort, promise. Though there are some things missing from these directions, and they're kind of important. Once it is done, take a thin piece of gros-grain ribbon (or thin bias tape), and mark off the true waist of the manquin. Make a straight line of ribbon down both sides, exactly under the armscye. Then take the front waist measurement (measure it, don't just divide your natural waist in 1/2), and divide it by 3. Measure from the sides this number, and make a mark. This is your start of the princess line. Do the same thing with your shoulder (top of the shoulder to neck) and hip measure. Make a mark too where your nipple would be on the bust. Then connect the dots with ribbon, to make a complete princess line. Then do the same on the back. If the lines look funny, you can shift them as need be, but to get a good fitm they must run over the highest point of the bust, which is that nipple mark.)

It was too long...part 2

[caliginous.livejournal.com]

You will need 4 pieces of musiln to do this. About 20" wide will probably be OK (two of them can be closer to 11", I'll explain in a bit), and how long you make them will depend on how much gather you want in the skirt, the length of a floor lenght skirt will probably be more than enough. When cutting muslin for this, tear it instead. Muslin will tair in perfectly straight, on -grain lines. This is important. Tear the muslin to size, and iron. On the two smaller pieces of muslin, measure and fold a 1" straight 'hem' down the long side of the fabric. This will be your center front and back. On all the other pieces of fabric, draw a straight line (long ways) in the middle of the piece, that is square to the top tear and parallel the edges. This is your grain line, and it is important.
Now, take the piece that is folded, and pin it to the front and center of your manequin, wherever on your wiast/hips you want the skirt to sit. smooth the other fabric along the manequin, to the first piece of ribbon. That's the waist line of your first panel. Take one of the wide pieces, and pin the grainline in the direct center of the side ribbon and the center-side ribbon, so that it is next to the front panel. Now comes the fun part. You get to pin the two panels together, to make your first seam. I just pin the pieces together as you would on the inside of a garment you are getting ready to sew. Here is where you get to experiment with how much gather will look good, and determine how much pouf you want the skirt to have. Once you've got one seam looking good, continue the process around to the back. The fold of the other small fabric will be directly in the center back. If there is any bunching in the waist, it can be smoothed out by puling it into the seam, or folding it out into darts. You can also trim away excess fabric at the seam, so you can actually see what you're working with. Once you've got the right amount of bunchiness, you can draw a line at the hem of the skirt. Then trace ALL your pin lines, and your waist. Also make marks where you want to join pieces (these are notches, that you will transferr to the paper pattern). Don't make notches that you can confuse. Make one notch one line, one notch two lines, etc. And make more than one notch per seam. Since you don't want six line notches, you can also start at one line high, two low, then reverse that for another panel, use only one or two line notches for a seam, etc. This way you will be sure to sew the right panel in the right places. Once all your marking is done, unpin your pattern, iron it, and trace it onto paper. True the pattern by making the first 1/4" of each seam (all your waist corners and hem corners) a true right angle. This way you won't have any funny dips when it's all sewn together. Now make a muslin mock-up to test fit. Be sure when you cut that you leave yourself seam allowance, as it's not on the pattern. For mock-ups I usually leave a good inch, just to be sure that I can ajust bigger accurately. Once it's fitted, make any ajustments to your pattern (if it needed major ajustments, you mgiht want to make a second mock-up). Then you can start your 'fashion fabric' one.



I know it's a ton of work, and I usually make my mock-ups out of a pretty cotton, that I can then paint or embroider or something, so that at least it's not all work wasted. But if you want something to fit right like this, and you don't want to destroy your good fabric getting there, this is the way to go.

As to closures, I highly suggest you get over your zipper fear. They aren't really that bad, and surprisingly I've become increasingly fond of invisible zippers. Pick up a copy of "The New Singer Sewing Essentials" and read up on how to put in a zipper. They've got some great ideas on it, and it has full colour pictures too. using a zipper foot on your machine also helps a lot.

Good luck, and let me know if you need any further explanation, I've probably got some diagrams somewhere on this.