Month: July 2016

In the Sketchbook – July 2016

Wendy3 Comments

Welcome to In the Sketchbook, a monthly look at fashion design sketches that we are working on for ourselves. Sketching garments on a personal croquis is a great way for the individual couture enthusiast to move beyond the use of commercial patterns and into a world of personalized design! It can be intimidating at first, but with a little bit of practice it becomes something you look forward to. Join us for a look of what we have going on In the Sketchbook! Brought to you by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor and Steph King from Siouxzeegirl Designs.

On this third installment of In the Sketchbook, I’m exploring combining structured fabrics with soft, drapey fabrics and asymmetry.

Earlier this month, I was getting off the elevator after a morning workout as a neighbor was getting on to go to her office. She was wearing a lovely navy linen jacket and a flowy skirt in a floral print. I thought about how nice she looked and the image brought to mind two fabric pairings I have that are waiting to become something new to wear.

Both of the soft fabrics were acquisitions from A Fabric Place outside Baltimore in May. The gorgeous sage green wool crepe was a gift from my dear friend Stephanie King, who saw how perfectly it goes with the green, peach and pink silk charmeuse. The blue-gray wool was also a purchase from A Fabric Place. It was part of an assignment during Sarah Veblen’s Design I class for me to pair a sheer floral with a “serious” fabric.

Here are the sketches.

I’m thinking asymmetric coat dress for one of the two fabric combinations. I haven’t settled on the neckline/collar yet, but if I go with the green, I thought the charmeuse would be nice as a cuff and maybe a band on the dress as well as the mock skirt peeking out from underneath the wool. If I go with the blue-gray, I’m thinking soft folds everywhere the sheer is used (but not actual ruffles). These ideas need to percolate some more.

Here is another asymmetrical design idea that’s been percolating in my brain. It was an assignment in Design 1 to come up with a “swoop” design.

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The pattern work on that one will be quite the project.

Right now, I’m in relaxed summer mode with my sewing. I found some fabric in a drapey light neutral that I was thinking about making into a summer skirt. The fabric doesn’t lend itself to pleats, but I wanted a relaxed silhouette. S0, here are the ideas I sketched out as possibilities.

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Lots to think about.

I’d love to hear what you think about these and about what you’re sketching. Be sure to check out what’s in Steph’s sketchbook at 10 Sewing Machines & a Serger.

The Belated Spoonflower Challenge Dress

Wendy9 Comments

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The latest addition to my self-designed wardrobe is a dress made from organic cotton sateen in the print called Entangled, which was designed by Heather Dutton of Hang Tight Studio and sold on Spoonflower.com. I intended to wear it in the ASG Chicago Chapter fashion show last October as part of a group challenge with other members of my neighborhood group, Sew Chicago. We had voted on the print and we could choose to make any garment using any of the fabrications and colors that were offered in this particular print. I really like the print and  I wanted to be part of the group on the runway, but I was the co-coordinator of that show and the dress didn’t get finished in time.

I tried it on for Sarah Veblen later that fall and she pinned out some of the fullness in the side seams and contoured them toward the hem. Nice improvement, but when I realized that making that change meant resetting the invisible zipper on one of the seams, it remained unfinished for months. I rationalized that this is a summer dress and there was no point in finishing it in the fall or winter. Then came the crunch for the Haute Couture Club of Chicago fashion show and the next thing I knew there was just barely enough time to get it done so I could wear it at the ASG National Conference in Indianapolis.

As you can see, the dress has a curved Empire seam. It dips quite a bit in the back.

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When I used this design again for my Little Black Dress, which is more fitted in the skirt, I modified the curve so that it didn’t dip as much.

I was really excited about the way this print worked on the collar. I had seen a striped cotton dress on a mannequin in a store last summer that had a collar like this one. The stripes were vertical in the body of the dress and horizontal across the front of the collar. I knew this print would give a similar effect and that it would be a piece of cake to draft the pattern.

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It’s basically a Peter Pan Collar without a break in the back with the front edges extended to overlap a bit and shifted over to the side to go over one shoulder.

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I used small release pleats and tiny darts to control the fullness from the relaxed silhouette I was going for.

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I lined the dress in light blue Imperial cotton batiste. The overall effect is a dress that’s amazingly comfortable to wear.