Creating My FMP Toile

I pinned all of my pattern pieces on to the calico and cut them out. I also colour coded these pieces to avoid getting them mixed up and so I knew what piece went where. Once they were all cut out I started to sew them all together. Before I could sew the entire dress together I had to sample curved seams to make sure I knew what I was doing. This went well and I felt confident to stitch my toile together.

I started with the two centre back pieces first because it would mean that the shape of the skirt would form properly. I decided to sew the skirt first and then the bodice afterwards. The neck piece of the bodice had to have two pieces as I was planning on stuffing it. I had already sampled using the wadding for the stuffing of the neck piece. I wanted to stuff the neck piece of my toile but unfortunately we sewed the bias binding on to the neck piece before we remembered it needed stuffing. This is not too much of a problem because I am quite confident it will work first time on my final dress. I had to make my binding for this toile because I didn't have any but I'm going to try and buy some for my final dress as this will be much easier and will take less time.

My next step was to sample the tentacles of my dress. I did this by ripping chiffon. I then pinned together the waist bands of the skirt and bodice and wedged in my sample tentacles to see if it looked better on the outside of the skirt or sewed on to the hem of the skirt which i also experimented with. Another experiment was stitching the end of the tentacles to the waistband and hem but the best experiment was when I stitched the tentacles to the inside waistband of the skirt. This allowed the tentacles to hang lose on the inside of the skirt before dangling out from under the hem at the bottom. This fit in with my original design idea better.

My next stage was to put the zip into my toile. I used a concealed zip, placed the zip foot on the sewing machine and placed the zip along the section I'd left on the bodice. The zip was too long and so I had to alter it first and make it shorter I found when I had sewed the zip in that I had sewed it in too low. For my final dress I will have to make sure I measure exactly where the zip needs to go and be more accurate to stop this happening again.

I then sewed the waist of the skirt and the bodice together. Unfortunately the seams on the panels didn't quite match up and so I need to make sure that on my final dress I am more accurate with my sewing. Another issue I had was that the bodice was too big around the top part which meant it gaped slightly. I will have to reduce all of the front bodice panels by 1/2 cm so that it fits better for my final dress.

Patterning For My FMP Dress

To start with I had to change the design of my dress as it was to similar to another students and I wanted it to e more unique. I changed the shape of the skirt into a bubble.

This was my original design.

To start with I measured the bodice measurements on the mannequin with help from my tutor. I had to figure out how I wanted the bodice to fit. I wanted it to be a strong structure and fitted to the waist.

My next step was to take the patterning paper and draw free hand around the mannequins neck to get the correct shape and size. This went well and I had no problems.

I traced a bodice block and from this I started to draw out my bodice pieces. To do this I got pattern paper, took my measurements and drew the shapes I wanted. From discussing techniques with my tutor it was decided that due to the shape of the bodice I would need to panel the front top part of the dress. I needed to panel the bodice to make sure that it fitted around the bust of the female form. I had to ensure that the two outside panels were wider than the two inside panels.

I then went on to make my back pattern piece. I did this by measuring around the back of the mannequin to get the correct measurements. I decided on just producing one panel piece for the part of the bodice rather than different panels like with the front because I felt it fit better with my design and looked more feminine.

My next step was to work out where I wanted the zip on the dress and how high it would go up the body. The fit of the dress would be tighter with the zip so I had to bear that in min. I allowed a 1cm seam allowance all the way around my dress. I decided to put the zip on the left of the dress because I felt there was already enough going on, on the right side of the dress with the neck piece. It also made getting in and out of the dress a lot easier as you weren't having to negotiate the neck piece.

I know started work on my skirt piece. I wanted my skirt to be longer at the back and shorter at the front. I measure a student who was roughly the same height as the models we would be using in the show and decided that the back of my skirt would measure 80cm and the front should measure 50cm.

To create the pattern pieces for my skirt I trace a skirt block and then adapted it to fit with my design. Again I decided I would need to panel my skirt to create the shape I wanted. I drew out my seam allowances and started to draw out the panels from my traced skirt block. Each panel got longer from the front to the back to create the asymmetrical shape. The panels were also drawn wider in the middle to create the bubble effect.

I then needed to make sure that the waist of my skirt and the waist of my bodice matched up. I measured both an realised that the waist of my skirt was 1cm bigger than my bodice. The darts on the skirt were set to 2cm an so to reduce the length I reduced one of the darts at the back of the skirt to 1 cm so that the entire skirt waist now matched up with the waist of the bodice.

I redrew all of the panel pieces of my skirt to get the adapted basic shape of my skirt. These were my second raft pattern pieces. I then colour coded these pieces to help me match them up an to stop me from getting confuse. I also did this on my design so that I had a guide to work to. I then pinned my pattern pieces on to the mannequin to check I was going to end up with the correct shape I wanted. It was perfect and I was happy.