I don’t normally watch
the show because the stress and mess are too much for me. I just go online to see the finished products
for each show (yea, I’m a cheater. Lol).
But this year, me and a friend decided to join the Project Runway At
Home Challenges.
Here’s the
timeline for each week:
Thursday:
watch the episode of Project Runway in the evening
Friday: Challenge begins
Saturday:
Post a sketch and unfinished work on Instagram by 10am
Sunday: Post
an image of the finished product by 6pm
WHEW! Yes,
by the end of it all, I felt completed detached from the world. But it was nice to be completely absorbed in
something to distract you from reality for a while.
The first
challenge was to show your aesthetic.
Who are you? What are you about
as a designer/seamstress?
I am Plus Size.
I am not Trendy because I am too busy being the Best Me I
can be.
I am Conservative yet Edgy with Class and Sophistication.
When I heard
of this challenge, I knew exactly what would represent me. I had an idea for a dress last year (yes,
LAST summer). I even bought the fabric
for said dress….yes, I was sitting on some fabric and an idea for over a
year. I played around with some muslin
to get the idea of what I needed to do to construct this image but I was still
too afraid to cut into my wine colored ponte fabric. And you're right, the fabric in the picture is NOT wine colored ponte. No I didn't photoshop the color out. This was some fabric I was willing to experiment with.
I searched
for motorcycle jacket patterns to find something with the side zipper. But what I came across was just not it. So, I thought I’d just add a zipper in a
princess seam…..no, because the seam goes to the underarm and I want my zipper
to go higher than that. Then…..going
through my pattern “inventory” I came across this.
Perfect seam
placement for me to play with!!
I cut the
pattern out slightly bigger than my measurements to give me room to
cut/adjust. I believe there was still
too much room in the bust area but I was pressed for time and I didn’t have
time to grow a bigger cup (wink).
So for the
top of my dress, I used these pattern pieces.
I cut enough length to reach just below my waistline. Instead of just cutting one FRONT piece on
the fold, I cut four. I’ll explain why
shortly. I also used a collar pattern
piece from McCalls 5145 and improvised on the collar band (I have no idea where that
piece is so I just winged it). The
waistband is just an extra wide band that I pleated. I find that full circle
skirts adds more fabric around my waist
than I like. The ¾ circle skirt is
smooth without fitting while still some nice draping, fullness and flow. So I decided to use this as the bottom of my
dress.
Now….why did
I cut four pieces of the front? Well, I
knew I wanted to install a zipper between the FRONT and the FRONT SIDE
seam. But when I unzip the seam, I would
need a panel underneath to 1-hide my girls and 2-form its own lapel. So there’s 2.
Now, in order to form a proper lapel, I need some interfacing and a facing
fabric. The facing fabric also allows me
to close in (hide) the zipper tape on the lapel so it doesn’t show once I unzip
the side seam and flip the lapel over.
Hence, the remaining 2 FRONT pieces for a grand total of 4. I started
with connecting one of each piece together.
Then
attached the collar band and collar as a typical collar is added.
Added an
interfacing to the two FRONT pieces and attached them to the front. At this point, I did some fitting before I
added the zipper.
Using a
standard zipper, I installed one side into the left side seam, and the
other side into the right jacket edge. A bit more fitting, then I added the pleated waistband. Created a ¾
circle skirt (tutorial here) and attached it to the waistband underneath the
bottom pleat so the seam is hidden.
Sounds
easy???? Well, it didn’t seam that way
when I had only 2 days to work on this.
LOL However, I am OH SO PROUD of
myself for this one. I overcame my fear,
I was quick with thinking about construction, piecing and brought my vision
from a year ago into reality. I plan on
making a fall jacket like this. Not sure
if I will keep the pleated waist band…you never know! Whenever I do make this style over, I will
take more images throughout construction and update this blog post. Due to time constraints was I unable to. My apologies.
But I just had to share!!!!
You did a wonderful job... You better work those poses...
ReplyDeleteLOL! Thank you, Tanielle. I'm trying!
DeleteI just found your blog through one of my many FB Sewing groups. I will be following your blog. I love your creativity. You did a great job quickly on this dress.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I hope to do more posting this year. Stay tuned and I hope you enjoy!
Delete