Tumgik
#dressmaking
onegirlatelier · 5 months
Text
October, 2023 | Two-pieced skirt from Southern Song Dynasty (intro+tutorial)
Tumblr media
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Introduction
(Note: for now I’m not making a bibliography for this article, but if you are interested I’m more than happy to send the sources.)
The two-pieced skirt (liǎng piàn qún) is a type of skirt from the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). It is also known as xuàn qún (literal translation: circle/swirl skirt). As far I know, there are two sets of surviving samples of these skirts, one from the tomb of Ms Huang Sheng (this was her full maiden name - she died at 17, one year after getting married, in 1243) and the other from the tomb of Ms Zhou (also her maiden name - she died possibly at 35 and was buried in 1274). The main stylistic difference between these two sets of two-pieced skirts is that those of Ms Zhou had a relatively large difference between the hem and waist measurements (the hem is 15~20cm wider than the waist circumference), whereas those of Miss Huang Sheng had a small difference (approx. 10cm).
Below is a diagram showing the construction. The skirt is composed of one upper piece and one under piece. Each piece consists of two panels which are trapezoids or (roughly) rectangles. For the sake of convenience, we shall call them the centre panel and the side panel. You can see that the centre panels of the two pieces overlap, and the whole thing is fixed onto a waist band. All surviving samples have relatively wide waist bands—about 10-14cm in width. One strip on each side of the waist band is used to tie the skirt.
Tumblr media
Pattern details
The modern common agreement is that the panels are usually right trapezoids (trapezoids with two right angles). I don’t know whether this is historically accurate, as some people think they were pentagons, but I doubt we can ever find out from what is currently available, just because the fabrics had been damaged and distorted over time. Assuming that they are right trapezoids, there are two different ways to piece the panels: you can sew the edges with two right angles together, or you can sew together the opposite edge with two non-right angles together (see diagram). They yield different results. A skirt made with the first method would have more of an A-line and more flowy. One made with the second method would wrap more snugly around the torso and give an H-shape.
You might have noticed that the centre panel is a bit wider than the side panel. This is because the centre panel would be worn in the back and the side in the front. A good starting point is to make the centre panel 10cm wider, but this of course depends on one’s body shape.
Another modern agreement is that the skirt better compliments a flat body shape with gentle curves (as has been the mainstream high-class aesthetics for the female body for a very, very long time right up to now). The most prominent issue with a difference between waist and hip measurements is that the skirt will bunch up at the lower back. To alleviate this issue, darts are used on the sides. Another way is to wear a petticoat, some underpants, or just something around the waist to enlarge the waist measurement. The skirt is not designed to accommodate a large difference between waist and hip circumferences (>30cm probably, though it starts to get difficult at 25cm).
Applying your measurements
(Numbers, when applicable, are in centimetres.)
You need your waist and hip circumferences. The skirt is usually full length. I like to make it as long as possible without the danger of tripping. It could be made shorter for thicker stiffer fabrics or a more modern look. Keep in mind that the skirt has a very high waist.
The length of the waistband is usually 1.7-1.9*waist circumference. In any case, it cannot be shorter than 1.3*hip circumference or it won’t close properly.
Now that you have the length of the waistband, you can calculate the upper edges of the panels. Let a be the length of the waistband, b the finished upper edge of the side panel. Then the finished upper edge of the centre panel is roughly b+10. Using the information discussed in the previous section, we have an equation: a=2b+b+10. This is your starting point—adjust as needed.
Triangular darts. There are a few ways to make them and this is just one of them. Let c be the width on each side of one dart. c=(hip-waist)/4. This means each dart will eliminate half of the (hip-waist) difference, and there are two darts.
c+b= total width on the upper edge of the panel. The bottom edge (i.e. the hem) of the same panel would be about 5cm wider than the upper edge.  
The width of the waistband. If you would like to wear it without folding, 6-8cm is good. If wearing with a fold (which sometimes also helps reducing the bunching at the lower back), make it 10-14cm. Note that you need to cut the waistband doubling the width plus allowance.
The ties are usually 2-3cm wide. As for the length, try start from waist circumference+0.6*skirt length. I like to make it 20cm longer because I like long billowy ribbons. Like the waistband, you cut the ties doubling the width since you will fold it in sewing.
Then you would have something like this:
(measurements used: waist 65, hip 89)
Tumblr media
Be careful that you need extra fabric because of the fold created at the dart. (You’d need less fabric if you cut away the excess fabric in the dart.)
Tumblr media
Fabric suggestions
This is important. Very very important. Because only the right fabric is worth your time and produces the desired result.
In general, choose something soft, drapey and that conforms to your body. Two or three centimetres of difference in calculation hardly matters when you use a good silk.
Silk: a Chinese specialty called Luo is probably one of the best. Other types of soft drapey silks of medium weights are all fine. I don’t like the right side of silk charmeuse because it reflects the body curves a bit too much.
Viscose: use silk as a guide. I find that twill weave or crepe tends to be more drapey than plain weave.
Cotton/linen/wool: some of these are fine too. If using a thicker wool, only use it for the top piece and use a thin fabric for the under piece of the skirt.
An extra note on cutting out the pieces:
If you are making a skirt with contrasting colours/prints, pay attention to where you cut so that the best part of the pattern of the under piece can actually show through the slit.
Construction
Piece together the side panel and the centre panel, using French seams to make the side seam. Sew all the way from top to bottom.
Sew the dart and press it towards the back. (Alternatively, you can cut away excess fabric, or even make a pocket at the side seam.)
Do Steps 1 and 2 for both the upper and under pieces. Finish the allowances on the sides by folding twice and doing an invisible edge stitch. Leave the hem unfinished.
Tumblr media
Lay the upper and under pieces together, baste and check fit. Sometimes the centre panel don’t overlap perfectly and that’s fine.
Finish the ties, including the shorter edge not attached to the waistband.
Sew the outer side of the waistband to the skirt panels by laying them right sides together. Press open.
Fold the waistband right sides together and sandwich the tie in between. If wearing the waistband unfolded, you need to attach the tie along the top of the waistband on the under wide and in the middle of the waistband on the upper side (see picture). Sew. Do this for both short edges of the waistband.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
(You can interline the waistband if the fabric is too soft. I used a non-adhesive cotton interlining and cut it without allowance and stitched it onto the allowances of the skirt panels. Whatever method suits you should work.)
Turn the right side out and finish the inner side of the waistband by folding in the allowance and using an invisible stitch/felting stitch.
Finish the hem. For the corner, I prefer to do a three-fold corner so that I don't have to trim away the excess.
Tumblr media
Wash and press. Et voilà!
382 notes · View notes
cheapieclassic · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media
🐤🐦 yellow and blue 🐦🐤
Please enjoy this unintentional madeline cosplay featuring my newest make 🐤
I found 3m of golden yellow linen in a charity shop and decided luck was smiling on me, so I patterned out this ruched bodice with cap sleeves. This dress makes me feel like sunshine :) I finished it early so I can wear it on my birthday!
Handmade yellow linen dress styled with thrifted items - vintage straw hat, second hand blue leather satchel, and second hand blue brogues.
187 notes · View notes
busstop · 30 days
Text
Ryan Yip explains what a fabulous resource for sewers of all kinds the Royal School of Needlework Stitch Bank is.
62 notes · View notes
nonasuch · 9 months
Text
Tumblr media
I have about 6 yards of this fabric and I am going to make such a frilly dress out of it!!!
213 notes · View notes
professorpski · 9 months
Text
“Soon the knitter herself will visualize a thousand of other ways in which a motif can be used, and so fave at her disposal an exhaustible variety of fabrics. Thick fabrics or thin fabrics, patterned fabrics or plain fabrics, those blazing in colour or decorated with beads, she can make fabric imitated fur (Looped Knitting), Lace, Picot, Filet, or Crochet, and even cloque and woven fabric, by a mere change of technique. Every ornament known to dressmaking can be imitated, even hemstitching and buttons!”
When Mary Thomas wrote this in 1945 in Mary Thomas’s Book of Knitting Patterns when dressmaking was the most common craft women learned. Circular knitting, which she called seamless knitting, was viewed as peasant knitting, interesting historically, but not something most women likely to do. So, comparing knitting to dressmaking was a compliment. In fact, sewing pieces of knitted fabric was taken for granted and Thomas offered the same garment block or garment schematic that we see in dressmaking in the section explaining how to plan an entirely original sweater.
Similarly, Thomas urged her the reader to imagine new ways of patterning a knitted fabric through her choice of stitches. Every section of the book suggests how variations might be introduced to the stitches she explains. She valued the experimentation and imagination which created the stitches she taught and clearly saw yet more to be invented.
You can find this and other Thomas books at Dover Publications: https://store.doverpublications.com/0486228185.html
140 notes · View notes
arielleshaina · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Made a new dress! Inspired by Lucy’s romper 💙 Pattern is from 1970
110 notes · View notes
silverfoxstole · 8 months
Text
It’s done!
After ten days of work (and another three for a waistcoat I’m not that happy with; see below), the NotD coat is finished! Woohoo!
Overall, I’m really pleased with it, which is just as well as it’s taken so much time (and grief!). I worked out that if I’d paid myself minimum wage for all the hours I put in the labour alone would amount to about £500. One of my ex colleagues used to suggest I set up a dressmaking business and wouldn’t believe me when I told her it wouldn’t be cost effective as the amount of labour involved would make everything too expensive.
Anyway, I have taken quite a lot of photos, so you can see how it turned out:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
This got long so I’ll stick the rest behind a cut.
I ended up adding some extra fabric to the tails, as they were sticking out at an angle and didn’t look right. It means an extra seam but it’s not that visible and I much prefer it this way, with more fullness at the back (and it properly covers my bum, which is very important!):
Tumblr media
Though it looks fine on the dummy when I put it on I’m not convinced I didn’t raise the back waist seam a bit too far, but it’s sitting on my waist so… *shrugs* I don’t often look at myself from behind so it probably doesn’t matter that much.
After sewing on the two back buttons I changed my mind and went with the covered ones in the end, deciding on reflection that those I bought last week were a bit too pale. They would have fitted better if I’d made the binding more of a contrast (which I’m glad I didn’t as it would have been more obvious that it’s not exactly perfect in some places). I had to make the buttonholes manually as there was no way the automatic buttonhole foot wouldn’t get caught at some point. I haven’t sewn any that way since I first started out six years ago and was using my mother’s old machine! All the ones I’ve owned have had an automatic function so I had to practice a bit to remind myself how to do it. Thankfully they’ve turned out well.
I also solved the problem of the gap between the collar and lapel by stitching them together. It works a treat!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Though I’ve made a miniature version for Eight Bear, this is the first time I’ve tried to replicate an existing garment for myself (the Dark Eyes coat was an interpretation rather than a direct copy), and I am actually really proud that I’ve ended up with something that does look pretty much like the original, as well as Steven Ricks’s recreation, which has been a definite influence!
That said, while the coat has turned out well I’m not massively pleased with the waistcoat. I decided to make another one on a whim as I had a more accurate pattern and saw what looked like an ideal fabric but I don’t like it all that much now it’s done. It was hell to put together because the satin just started disintegrating and still is; I’ve had to sew up holes in both the pockets because the seams have just frayed straight through and I’d put them together before I thought of stabilising the edges with interfacing. It’s another men’s pattern and I should have made some adjustments but after doing so much to the coat I really couldn’t be bothered and just put it together as it was; I should really have added some length, which is ironic given the amount I had to remove from the coat, and perhaps levelled it off at the front. Consequently it’s not a great fit and sits really awkwardly on Stella as you can see, though that may have something to do with the fact that I put the buttonholes on the wrong side out of habit:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
There is a watch on the end of the chain this time, because the pockets are real! I quite like the look of the waistcoat undone when I put it on, but done up not so much. There’s a lot of spare fabric in the front for some reason, which I tried to hide by smoothing it under the collar and then stitching the collar down. It hasn’t entirely worked, and it doesn’t help that the brocade is such a bouncy fabric and doesn’t press well.
Putting it all together I do think it looks better on Stella than me, but that’s probably because I rarely wear so many layers! I wish I had a better backdrop than the bedroom but it’ll have to do:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Maybe I could unbutton the waistcoat and untuck the shirt and be Eight having a casual day? I love the coat but I do feel much more comfortable wearing it over a t-shirt and jeans!
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Now I just have to wait until some cooler weather to be able to put it into use. My only gripe is that there are no external pockets, either on the original or the pattern I used! Surely you’d think the Doctor would need pockets?
84 notes · View notes
she-makes-rainbows · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
What I’d wear if I were a member of The Fool 🌈❣️
Dress designed & sewn by me using vintage fabric 🪡✂️
50 notes · View notes
badassindistress · 2 years
Text
I am having to contend with an unconscionable amount of urgent emails lately so it's time for drastic measures:
Tumblr media
Time for a rainbow dragon dress!
(Many thanks to @ratheralark who kindly offered to ferry fabric all the way across the atlantic for me)
776 notes · View notes
princesssarisa · 3 months
Text
It's too bad that the 2021 Amazon/Sony Cinderella was such a mixed bag, because a version of Cinderella with the title character as a dressmaker and fashion designer could have been fantastic.
In Perrault's version of the tale, as the stepsisters plan what to wear to the ball, they turn to Cinderella for advice on everything, because she has "excellent notions" about fashion. Several adaptations that long predate the 2021 film – for example, the 1949 Russian film and its 1979 animated short remake – also make her a skilled seamstress, and have her sew her stepfamily's ballgowns. Disney's Cinderella shares this talent too, since she apparently made all the tiny clothes the mice and birds wear, she owns a book of dress designs, and she plans to fix up her mother's pink dress for the ball herself before her stepfamily keeps her too busy to do so.
Now, I'm sure Perrault and those adaptations just added these details to portray her as an ideal of femininity. But why not portray Cinderella's eye for fashion and skill at sewing as a special, unique talent and passion of hers? Why not portray her, like Rarity in My Little Pony: Friendship as Magic, as an artist whose medium just happens to be clothes? And why not let her use it as a means to try to earn her own living and escape from her stepfamily?
I think the problem with the 2021 musical is its ham-fisted emphasis on feminism, and the way it portrays sexism as Cinderella's obstacle, when a female dressmaker in a 19th century setting should have been nothing out of the ordinary. I think it might have worked better if her problem had been social class instead – if rather than people scorning her for trying to start a business because she's a woman, they scorned the idea that a poor, ragged "servant girl" thinks she can make beautiful dresses worthy of the rich. That would have fit much better with the tale's central "rags to riches" theme. But in my personal opinion, the core concept of a talented seamstress and fashion designer Cinderella, who dreams of opening her own dress shop and who designs her own ballgown, is a good one. Particularly because it has some basis in Perrault's tale and in earlier adaptations.
33 notes · View notes
nemfrog · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
Measurements. New York fashions. 1908. Catalog illustration.
Internet Archive
155 notes · View notes
zetathegrouch · 4 months
Text
An outfit I made a year ago!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Blouse and skirt both made and patterned by me!
Shoes from American Duchess
37 notes · View notes
cheapieclassic · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
🌲Hello friends :) 🌲
I have returned from hibernation to offer you the crinkliest of un-ironed linen co-ords featuring my vintage tablecloth apron and my green ticking op 🌱
🌲Green ticking op made from thrifted ikea bedsheet, self draft pattern. Styled with selfmade vintage tablecloth apron, refurbished woven bag and thrifted wool cardigan from next.
That cute little apron is made of damaged leftovers from the apron I made for my friend 💖
351 notes · View notes
aidensm8 · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media
I made this, I finally achieved my childhood dream of making a classic Barbie dress
553 notes · View notes
aardbrein · 7 months
Text
Dinosaur dress!!!
She’s finally finished!!! Also the sharktooth rosary i love her
The skirt is just two large rectangles (1meter x 2 meters each i think?), gathered up like you would do with a 18th century petticoat. The top is just something i made up and if anyone cares i could post the pattern!
Its entirely handsewn, by me, from old bedsheets
37 notes · View notes
professorpski · 7 months
Text
When you embroider, crochet, or knit, there are centuries in your hands. You are a maker, doing the same thing others have done for several thousand years. Their ideas created the techniques you now use. Who knows what pair of hands first cabled some stitches across some other stitches? Who knows where and when the first yarn over stitch was put on a needle to make an opening? All that matters is that they were done, somewhere, by someone. Now they are a part of the very ancient craft called knitting. This craft has endured, for the same reason that all such crafts endure: because people have loved it.
This passage by Barbara G Walker, one of the grandes dames of knitting, strikes me as both appreciative of history and dismissive of history at the same time. On the one hand, she is celebrating the long traditions which created, modified, and handed down so many marvelous methods of knitting. On the other hand, she does not give a hoot who exactly did what first. And yes, there are out there scholars, curators, and other such people who are keenly determined to hunt down first instances.
I would like to add to the quotation, "When you sew...." I see the wealth of dressmaking know-how in the many vintage books and vintage patterns I have and I marvel at the cleverness and creativity on display.
So, a toast to all makers, everywhere, in every era, and thanks.
This is from Walker's 1970 volume, A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, a stupendous collection of a large variety of knitting stitch patterns, and one of her many books.
137 notes · View notes