Sheet Dress 1 - Blue - The Design Process
I wanted to write about my planning and making of various dresses and things so that people who are wanting to make something but are too scared can see that all you have to do is just do it, do some stuff, make it up, and you can come up with something reasonable, even without a pattern, even if you can't draw yourself a nice picture of it, and even if you just sort of toss the material over something and move it around a bit to try out some ideas that don't actually look anything like what you are doing.
So, I think I mentioned that I bought a whole heap of second-hand sheets to make crazy dresses out of. The sheets have now been washed, and last night I had to start on the first one. I also had to make a couple of banana cakes. This sad state of affairs, of being required to cook and sew a sheet dress, came about when I got home with my brand new 4 metres of fantastic great material, drafted the sleeve pattern (the rest drafted the day before - upon which I found that I didn't have enough of the original material, hence the brand new stuff!) and was about to pin the pattern on the material and cut it out.... when I remembered I hadn't washed it!! Arrrgh! Damn! So I had to wash it because I didn't want to make my fabulous dress in my great (4 metres of and thus expensive too) material and have it shrink later when washed and then not fit. Especially since the bodice is supposed to be quite fitted. So anyway, I had to wash the material and couldn't sew with it and had to do something else :(
After looking at various dress patterns and pictures for the last few days, I eventually decided to start with the material that I probably couldn't use a pattern for anyway. I think I might not use any patterns at all after all, because it so hard to find a pattern or design that suits the material, it might be easier to just make up a dress that suits the material. The sheet I am using has a border down each long edge, then chunky flowers a bit further in, and then scattered flowers in the middle section. The background is white and all the designs are blue. Here is a picture of a quarter of the sheet. So, the pattern carries on in reverse across the sheet, and then it is twice as long.
Obviously the border is just begging to be used at the edge of the dress, probably around the bottom of the skirt. This meant I could not use a circle skirt like I was vaguely thinking. I wanted it to have enough fullness to show of the material a bit so I didn't want a narrow fitted skirt. I don't want the skirt to be TOO gathered or full though, or the nice banded pattern would not be properly visible. Since I wanted it to join up nicely I couldn't have the side seams of the skirt slanting so I might just make it a dirndl skirt - a rectangle gathered at the top - although I don't like that style much, so I will see how it looks and then maybe shape the top section a little, leaving the bottom seams vertical to match up the pattern.
I wanted to use another band of the edging as it seemed only reasonable to make the most of it. I held the material up to the dummy in various ways, after pinning on a bit of a skirt. Regarding the length of the skirt, I wasn't really comfortable with having it only about knee length for some reason, and then also to show off the banding of the material, I went with about mid-calf length. Anyway, after pinning the material onto my dress-making dummy to make a sort of skirt of the right length (although I didn't bother gathering it really) then I held the band at the other edge of the material in various places to work out where it could go. I was thinking making a yoke on the skirt (which would also solve the ugly dirndl skirt problem), but then there wasn't enough of the uncluttered flower pattern of the skirt showing and the change in material seemed to move too fast, visually up the skirt (or down, whatever). So, then I moved it up a bit, and realised the width of the edge band was almost exactly the distane from waist to mid bust, and that I could have a band around the lower torso like this, just cutting a rectangle and putting in a few simple darts, and sewing it to the skirt. See the picture for my random, rough mock-up where you can see the idea of the band and the amount of pattern seen in the skirt.
But, what about the top bit? Well, I was thinking of sleeves, because I like things with sleeves, but I just couldn't really do it. I think this is because sleeves are not in fashion at the moment on dresses, so it is hard to get my head to come up with sleeve ideas. I thought of doing a square neck-line, in keeping with the horizontal lines of the dress already there, but felt like having a v-neck for some reason. Gahers seemed nice and in keeping with the gathers at the top of the skirt. Anyway, I eventually thought that I could basically get two rectangles of material, sewing the short ends to the front and back of the lower torso band, one on the left, one on the right. Then gather the material in the centre, which would be on the shoulders. See my two little drawings - one made when I was still thinking of having little sleeves.
The next problem to consider was the fastening - how was I to get it on and off? With some other pieces of material I did some experimenting and confirmed that anything fitting enough around the waist was not going to get off over my shoulders and chest. Duh. Because chest measurements are bigger than waist measurements. But for some reason I had to check this. It obviously didn't want to fasten at front, and it would kind of ruin the nice waist band if it fastened at back. So at the side it is, under the arm, with white buttons. (After various considerations of fasteners I had not come up with the answer until the next day, when I realised it had to be white buttons).
Other points that sort of went into the design but I didn't actually think about explicitly as aims, are that 1. the gathers over the chest and at the waist will help make up for a lack of lining if it is a bit see-through. I am thinking of lining the waist band for stiffness and opacity as a design feature with a bit of another sheet I bought cheap to line some of he Victorian costume (and then forgot mostly about). I actually have a very large amount of light blue thin cotton sheets and lengths of material that was all very cheap, so all mock-ups and linings are done in light-blue. 2. The dress is modular and made out of adjusted rectangles, which makes it easy to do, on the dress dummy or maybe even just making it up and trying it on oneself.
Now, all I have to do is make it. Hopefully it will work or all this won't be very inspiring. The good thing though is that the sheet only cost $3, so at least there is not much to lose. :)
So, I think I mentioned that I bought a whole heap of second-hand sheets to make crazy dresses out of. The sheets have now been washed, and last night I had to start on the first one. I also had to make a couple of banana cakes. This sad state of affairs, of being required to cook and sew a sheet dress, came about when I got home with my brand new 4 metres of fantastic great material, drafted the sleeve pattern (the rest drafted the day before - upon which I found that I didn't have enough of the original material, hence the brand new stuff!) and was about to pin the pattern on the material and cut it out.... when I remembered I hadn't washed it!! Arrrgh! Damn! So I had to wash it because I didn't want to make my fabulous dress in my great (4 metres of and thus expensive too) material and have it shrink later when washed and then not fit. Especially since the bodice is supposed to be quite fitted. So anyway, I had to wash the material and couldn't sew with it and had to do something else :(
After looking at various dress patterns and pictures for the last few days, I eventually decided to start with the material that I probably couldn't use a pattern for anyway. I think I might not use any patterns at all after all, because it so hard to find a pattern or design that suits the material, it might be easier to just make up a dress that suits the material. The sheet I am using has a border down each long edge, then chunky flowers a bit further in, and then scattered flowers in the middle section. The background is white and all the designs are blue. Here is a picture of a quarter of the sheet. So, the pattern carries on in reverse across the sheet, and then it is twice as long.
Obviously the border is just begging to be used at the edge of the dress, probably around the bottom of the skirt. This meant I could not use a circle skirt like I was vaguely thinking. I wanted it to have enough fullness to show of the material a bit so I didn't want a narrow fitted skirt. I don't want the skirt to be TOO gathered or full though, or the nice banded pattern would not be properly visible. Since I wanted it to join up nicely I couldn't have the side seams of the skirt slanting so I might just make it a dirndl skirt - a rectangle gathered at the top - although I don't like that style much, so I will see how it looks and then maybe shape the top section a little, leaving the bottom seams vertical to match up the pattern.I wanted to use another band of the edging as it seemed only reasonable to make the most of it. I held the material up to the dummy in various ways, after pinning on a bit of a skirt. Regarding the length of the skirt, I wasn't really comfortable with having it only about knee length for some reason, and then also to show off the banding of the material, I went with about mid-calf length. Anyway, after pinning the material onto my dress-making dummy to make a sort of skirt of the right length (although I didn't bother gathering it really) then I held the band at the other edge of the material in various places to work out where it could go. I was thinking making a yoke on the skirt (which would also solve the ugly dirndl skirt problem), but then there wasn't enough of the uncluttered flower pattern of the skirt showing and the change in material seemed to move too fast, visually up the skirt (or down, whatever). So, then I moved it up a bit, and realised the width of the edge band was almost exactly the distane from waist to mid bust, and that I could have a band around the lower torso like this, just cutting a rectangle and putting in a few simple darts, and sewing it to the skirt. See the picture for my random, rough mock-up where you can see the idea of the band and the amount of pattern seen in the skirt.
But, what about the top bit? Well, I was thinking of sleeves, because I like things with sleeves, but I just couldn't really do it. I think this is because sleeves are not in fashion at the moment on dresses, so it is hard to get my head to come up with sleeve ideas. I thought of doing a square neck-line, in keeping with the horizontal lines of the dress already there, but felt like having a v-neck for some reason. Gahers seemed nice and in keeping with the gathers at the top of the skirt. Anyway, I eventually thought that I could basically get two rectangles of material, sewing the short ends to the front and back of the lower torso band, one on the left, one on the right. Then gather the material in the centre, which would be on the shoulders. See my two little drawings - one made when I was still thinking of having little sleeves.
The next problem to consider was the fastening - how was I to get it on and off? With some other pieces of material I did some experimenting and confirmed that anything fitting enough around the waist was not going to get off over my shoulders and chest. Duh. Because chest measurements are bigger than waist measurements. But for some reason I had to check this. It obviously didn't want to fasten at front, and it would kind of ruin the nice waist band if it fastened at back. So at the side it is, under the arm, with white buttons. (After various considerations of fasteners I had not come up with the answer until the next day, when I realised it had to be white buttons).Other points that sort of went into the design but I didn't actually think about explicitly as aims, are that 1. the gathers over the chest and at the waist will help make up for a lack of lining if it is a bit see-through. I am thinking of lining the waist band for stiffness and opacity as a design feature with a bit of another sheet I bought cheap to line some of he Victorian costume (and then forgot mostly about). I actually have a very large amount of light blue thin cotton sheets and lengths of material that was all very cheap, so all mock-ups and linings are done in light-blue. 2. The dress is modular and made out of adjusted rectangles, which makes it easy to do, on the dress dummy or maybe even just making it up and trying it on oneself.
Now, all I have to do is make it. Hopefully it will work or all this won't be very inspiring. The good thing though is that the sheet only cost $3, so at least there is not much to lose. :)
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