Claudia Demcak | UCA Dossier

F L O U

A T E L I E R

D O S S I E R CLAUDIA DEMCAK University for the Creative Arts • Fashion Atelier • Year 2 • Semester 2 Processes of bias cut project and fabric manipulation project.

2

CONTENTS

Bias

CuT

dress

Draping Experimentation ............................................... 4

Drape to Toile ................................................................... 5

Final Construction ........................................................... 6

Final Dress ......................................................................... 8

fabric

manipulation

dress

Draping Experimentation ............................................. 10

Drape to Toile ................................................................. 16

Final Construction ......................................................... 18

Final Dress ....................................................................... 22

Flats

and

illustrations

Bias Cut Dress ................................................................. 24

Fabric Manipulation Dress ........................................... 25

Jumpsuit with Fabric Manipulations ........................... 26

Dress with Bias Cut Sheer Panel .................................. 27

3

Bias

Cut

dress

Draping Experimentation I started draping for my bias cut dress with white, lightweight polyester crepe fabric. I created a classic twist at the waist and changed around the positioning.

I also tried draping with some simpler concepts because I knew that I wanted to do something fairly simple. I decided to do a slim-fitting dress and relied on sketching to decide the kind of design I wanted.

4

Bias

Cut

dress

Drape to Toile I decided on a high neck, long, streamlined gown with triangular panels. I initially draped it roughly with a medium weight polyester crepe to get the smooth fit that I wanted. I marked the fabric panels that I had draped, transferred them onto paper and created a toile with a lightweight crepe.

At the fitting, my teacher’s adivce was to make the fabric around waist and hips less tight to allow for some ease.

5

Bias

Cut

dress

Final Construction

I decided to add some volume to the centre and shorter panels (left at the front and right at the back) with a slash and spread method. After making those changes, I marked the bias grainline on my fabric with a hand sewn basting stitch and traced 3cm of extra seam allowance around each piece before cutting it out. I added this extra seam allowance in case I wanted to add volume anywhere. I hand basted the pieces together with a 5mm stitch length to drape it on the mannequin and make adjustments where necessary. I took the fabric in at some seams. The skirt seams were puckering so I seam ripped them, allowed them to drape naturally, pinned them closed and resewed.

6

Bias

Cut

dress

I machine stitched all of the seams and ones I draped it on the mannequin. I still noticed some puckering so I took out the stitches in a few areas and redraped and stitched them again. Once I was satisfied with the silhouette, I basted the seams on the inside closed as French seams, installed an invisible zipper, cut a keyhole on the back and attached the binding. I evened out the hem and fin ished it with a small zig zag stitch. I finished all of the French seams and secured the binding by hand.

7

Bias

Cut

dress

Final Dress

The final dress still has puckering at many seams, which is a challenge that I had with this fabric.

The initial, tighter silhouette worked a little better with the seams at the bodice. With the extra ease and the panels in the bodice, the fabric does not rest smoothly on the body.

The puckering at the left size seam starts just under the zipper. The seam was smooth until the zipper was installed, causing the delicate fabric to buckle from the heaviness of the zipper. A solution to this problem may be to reduce the volume in the side seam to allow it to go straight down.

The silhouette of the armholes had skewed slightly from the original shape because of imprecise cutting. Next time I will make sure to cut delicate fabrics with paper above and underneath them.

8

Bias

Cut

dress

The keyhole on the back of the dress turned out well.

The binding is even and the loop is a great size for the button.

I created a shank for the button.

The invisible zipper was installed smoothly and bound on the inside with a lightweight silk satin fabric for a clean finish that is not bulky. It is the “Hong Kong Stitch� technique, trimmed to the seam underneath.

The zig zag hem stitch is tiny and clean. The domestic sewing machine was not cooperating very well and often skipped stitches. I went over most areas twice, sometimes three times. It did not make the hem too bulky, rather it is still quite fluid and it did make the hem look very neat.

9

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Draping Experimentation I draped a lot with some different fabrics to find a design that I wanted to produce for my fabric manipulation project.

Silk satin:

10

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Nylon organza:

11

Fabric

Silk satin:

12

manipulation

dress

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Polyester satins and crepe:

13

Fabric

manipulation

Polyester satin, crepe, and silk satin:

14

dress

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Polyester satin:

15

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Drape to Toile To create a toile of the design sketch that I had decided on, I used dressform tape to pin the shapes that I wanted to achieve, and draped the shapes with cotton fabric over top. I marked the lines and put the pattern on paper before cutting out the toile fabric.

16

Fabric

manipulation

dress

I made the toile from coated cotton curtain lining for the foundation to make it stiff, and plain weave cotton for the drape.

Gathering was bulging so it was slashed off.

The design as a whole works well with the Earth & Ocean concept, but has too much going on, and not enough stability in the foundation garment to sustain the manipulation panels.

I decided to use a lighterweight fabric for the manipulation and to simplify the silhouette of the foundation garment.

17

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Final Construction Draping a new, simpler silhouette for foundation garment and testing skirt shapes.

18

Fabric

manipulation

dress

After constructing the foundation garment, I tested the fit on a mannequin. The fit was great, so I redraped the mannipulation in a lighterweight fabric and redrafted the hem.

I also made a fabric manipulation panel for the right side and made a new pattern piece for it.

Facing pieces: I made the curves at the neckline shallow so that the binding would look smooth.

I fused these pieces as well as the edges of the dress neckline and back with a medium weight fusing to make sure that the spaghetti straps don’t pull too much on the dress.

19

Fabric

manipulation

dress

I used silk chiffon for the fabric manipulation panels, which made finishing the edges with a pin hem tricky because it is so delicate. To prevent the hem from bubbling I tried basting a stay stitch before sewing the pin hem, sewing it with paper underneath and applying fusing to the edge. The lightweight fusing method worked best.

I bound the edges of all the facings and all of the seams on the inside of the dress with the silk chiffon.

To make the silk chiffon spaghetti straps, I folded a 6cm wide strip of chiffon in half and basted it down the middle, folded in half again and stitched a regular stitch down the middle. Then I used a tool to pull the strap inside out. Because silk chiffon is so delicate, the strap had to be double layered.

20

Fabric

manipulation

dress

After sewing on the fabric manipulation, I installed an invisible zipper on the left side.

I put the garment on a mannequin, but the garment was too tight around the waist. I let the dress out 3mm on either side of the zipper, which worked and dress fit the mannequin. The fabric must have shrunken from the steam of the iron. Next time I will make sure to steam or wash my fabric to allow it to shrink beforehand.

After attaching the facings to the neckline, I made sure to baste the edges before pressing in order to press the edge efficiently.

21

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Final Dress

The final dress turned out well, except for the fact that the fabric may have shrunken again from more steaming because it is difficult to get the zipper past the waist on the mannequin. The left side hem is also puckering a bit. Even though the seam itself is smooth, when hung, the seam seems to buckle. I tried to counteract this by taking the dress in 5mm at the hem to try to offset the grain, in case that was the problem, but that did not work. The only solution I can think of is to make the dress shorter in this fabric. Besides that, the garments is quite smooth and there is no pulling at the straps.

22

Fabric

manipulation

dress

Zipper is installed correctly, is smooth and looks invisible from the outside.

Binding is mostly neat with slight twisting and some topstitching showing. (I used the stitch-in-the-ditch technique but the seam is still visible because the silk chiffon binding is so fine.)

Hem is bound neatly and the slip stitch is invisible, not too tight and not too loose.

23

FLats

and

illustrations

Bias Cut Dress

24

FLats

and

illustrations

Fabric Manipulation Dress

25

FLats

and

illustrations

Jumpsuit with Fabric Manipulation

26

FLats

and

illustrations

Dress with Bias Cut Sheer Panel

27