The skirt that might come to fruition - with your help!

I started to write this before Helen got back to me with photos but decided to post without much editing.

The skirt I'm trying to make

Helen originally got back to me to say that she liked the pleated skirt I toiled for her. This is the latest toile in a line of toiles for various styles of tartan skirts; Helen wants a skirt made in our family tartan. She liked the style and wanted me to go ahead with it. At that stage I hadn’t seen a photo of her wearing it as she wanted to get Anthony to take any photos and he had a lot of late hours at work.

Helen deliberately wore a cropped top so I could see what was going on. This waistband looks far too tight to me.
You can see that the front is not lying as a pleat equivalent. It's too tight at the hips.

She likes it and finds it comfy

The back view shows horizontal creasing just under the waistband. Is that just a size issue?

She likes the other style I suggested - but said to keep that for next year’s skirt! She says ‘we’ have wasted so much time trying to decide which style that it would be better now to get on with it. I agreed that she had been unable to decide what style she wanted!

She told me that the skirt fits well - but could not be any tighter at all. I made a 10 originally and expanded that to around a 12 really but decided next time I would make the straight 12. Note that this was before seeing photos, based on what she said.

However, I did have some queries

• The toile was in a fabric with a slight stretch. I wonder how much give the tartan has? It's a firm pure wool tartan.
• I’d like to line the skirt
• I’ll have to think about this as with size changes being at the side seam, it might me better to go bigger and take in if required? What do you think?
• I will of course be making in a mid-weight (really quite heavy) tartan with the pattern matching that entails too, so it’s entirely possible that some of the overlaps will be deeper and take up more waist space.
• Also, is it likely that I’ll need more waist stabilisation? Traditional kilts use horse hair.

Hmm.

Then Helen sent me the photos of the skirt. It’s too small for her imo – too small by quite a bit. It’s certainly too small at the hips - and Helen now accepts that - but I also think it’s too small at the waist. So I’d need to make the 14 - or even bigger at the hips? My feeling is that a lot of young people don't really know what good fit is and accept a level of fit that I for one wouldn't.

She found that the skirt is a great length but could not be any shorter at all. If it makes pattern matching easier, she doesn’t mind it being slightly longer. I strongly suspect it will be a little longer!

She initially said would like self-fabric i.e. tartan belt loops. The toile had self fabric loops as per pattern (actually pattern has contrasting straps) but I did buy leather kilt fastenings. She doesn’t want these. She would prefer gold coloured rather than silver coloured D rings. I offered antiquey brass  - not sure what it is - but she was happy with that. Later, after sending photos (and presumably seeing them for first time herself), she wondered about buttonholes and decorative gilt buttons instead of the small straps

Helen drew the red to show where she'd like the front to come to and the yellow circles are the buttons.

Buttons similar to these

I reminded her that with this particular style it isn’t possible to get both a good fit and a perfect pattern match of the setts, because of the shaping necessary for her waist. She’s okay with that.

After she sent the photos, she asked about several possible changes

She said she’d like the overlap to come over more - I think that could be due to size i.e. skirt being too small? She drew on the photos to try to demonstrate what she’d like. As the edge of the overlap lies on the straight of grain, I feel my options are limited. I certainly agree that the overlap is not far enough over. However the leading edge of the overlap is supposed to simulate a pleat as there is only one pleat on the left and two on the right. Do you think that making a bigger size would sort this or do I need to do rather more?

I feel that the front portion is rather slim - it doesn’t change with size. I do wonder how much it would be possible to change that without affecting the structure of the skirt, remembering that the skirt is supposed to be symmetrical at the front - that is, the edge of the overlap is substituted for the first pleat on the right of skirt - right side has 2 pleats, while left side has 1. Currently, the gap between the edge of the overlap and the pleat is huge, which is why Helen has asked about extending the overlap.

I pointed out that the drag marks and lie were because of size. She accepted that after a brief discussion. Originally she thought that only the waistband dictated size, as there is a fixed large poppet there at the moment (was supposed to be a buttonhole and button but I couldn't get it to sew). Possibly the placement was slightly off as I had to guess some placements with my sizing altering half way through. She had to pull quite a bit at the strap to get it to fit.

She wondered about buttonholes and decorative gilt buttons instead of the small straps.

I asked her about lining and she wasn’t sure but agreed when I suggested tartan might be itchy against the legs . She’s not too bothered, though, so if it’s too difficult, she’s happy that I don’t do it.

I told her that with adjustments being at the side of the skirt, if she was visiting at any stage, I could fit it on her before completion. This would give a better fit. It’s possible that she may be coming at Easter. Given this, I will look at the pattern in a couple of weeks and lay out the tartan to see how it will work - the pleats at front and back will inevitably be a different depth from the existing ones. I’m hoping I won’t need a hem as hopefully I’ll be able to use the selvedge at the bottom. All being well, I’ll try to get the skirt without waistband ready for her coming. If she’s not coming at Easter, that will be my target anyway.

After our latest discussion and seeing the photos,  a try-on and fit is absolutely essential.

But first, do I need to redesign the pattern? Heart sinks! Your thoughts are very welcome.

Or do I need to forget the pattern as pleat depth will be very different, anyway?

Sleeve and Back Crisis - hopefully averted!

The pressure of the wedding sewing is starting to get to me. To be honest,  it's more the pattern making than the thought of the construction. I'd be more than happy to take a pattern and make it up. No decisions. No problems. Certainly no designing. I don't mind the minor alterations required - not even FBAs!

I've been struggling with the design of the bridesmaids’ dresses. We have an inspiration photo,  which I can't show here, but it has a pretty open back. That itself causes issues as there just isn't the fabric available to provide support so the open parts gape.

Worse, the girls were keen to have a boat neck at the front.

Boat neck plus open back = disaster! There is just no support available and the shoulders fall off the sides.

I have Suzy Furrer's classes and her book, 'Building Patterns, The Architecture of Women’s Clothing', which I like and use. I carefully watched her video on how to create a boat neck and carried out the steps on my pattern. The video was more detailed and I have included a photo of my pattern alterations on one of the patterns (Joanne's). The diagrams below are from the book, not specifically about boat necks, though the video section was.

Showing front neckline

At Christmas,  I had the first basic toiles and a front boat neck version for the two bridesmaids to try; the back was a standard back. Reasonably successful and I marked the changes required.

I attend a Sewing Bee with Dan and she is helping me think about the dresses now, for which I'm extremely grateful as I was really struggling.

Joanne, my middle daughter, visited last week. I was able to take her briefly to the class and Dan fitted the toile. There were a number of issues related to the boat neck and the open back, which I had now created for Joanne’s visit. Helpfully, Dan pointed out that the bodice was too long - it looked much better when pinned shorter. I thought I knew where I was going.

I had made a sleeve but found it took full and puffed and we didn’t like it. This was a sleeve from a pattern I'd made previously - Simplicity 1418 - which I thought would have worked. It didn’t. So Dan also went through how to create two types of  cap sleeves and roughly pinned one on one side, using the sleeve I had created. The other side was sleeveless and finished. I rather liked the sleeve she pinned and so decided to make a ‘proper’ version later - I haven’t got around to this as yet! Dan says that a cap sleeve can be added later, so I don’t need to worry about that at the moment, particularly as we’re thinking sleeveless at present. That could change! So many things have changed already.

We originally preferred the sleeve on the left

I have some photos of the toile, which I'm not publishing. As Joanne has returned south, that's what I have to work with.

As I can’t show any photos, I'm including the step diagrams instead.

Alison, my oldest daughter,  visited over the weekend (nice to see my grandsons). As I've been pretty ill,  I hadn't had a chance to make the alterations to the toile she tried at Christmas. I did some quick pinning and hacking when she retried it! We identified some serious flaws and I realised I’d have to completely redraw the pattern

I also read about how to contour for a low back in Suzy Furrer's book and while Alison was attending a function on Saturday,  redrew the pattern and made up a new toile. I quote here from Suzy Furrer and show her diagrams:

“If the back neckline depth is level with or lower than the base of the armhole an adjustment needs to be made to the back bust ease. If the back neckline depth is level with the depth of the armhole, bring the back underarm/bust seam in 3/8". If the neckline is midway between the armhole and the waist, bring the back underarm/bust seam in 5/8". If the neckline depth is at the waist, bring the back underarm/bust seam in 7/8".

This adjustment will prevent the back from gaping and wrinkling. The more skin exposed, the tighter the garment should be. This is a negative ease situation. This adjustment is only done to the back, not the front. The adjustment is in addition to the 1/4" taken off the sloper to reduce ease at the bust.”

In addition,  I decided to follow instructions on how to make a cut on cap sleeve using Tanya Whelan’s book Sew Many Dresses sew little time; the ultimate dressmaking guide. I haven’t used this book as yet but have read through and it seems interesting but I can’t review it as yet. I have other sewing instructional books but wanted to use this one as it is modern and I thought more suitable for these dresses! The all in one cap sleeve was a suggestion from Alison who likes this type of sleeve. It didn’t work - my fault entirely. Perhaps the problem here was that the sleeve pattern I used wasn't one of the ones in the book (the book comes with patterns). I used the sleeve pattern from my original block for Alison - worse, I hadn’t altered the sleeve pattern in line with the bodice alterations - the armscye had been altered because of the contouring required. Anyway,  the back part of the sleeve looked okay, just like the diagram. I wasn't at all sure about the front as it didn't look at all as per photo in the book,  no matter how hard I tried. I sewed it up. The armhole was so tiny that Alison said even if she lost so much weight that she became skeletal it still wouldn't fit!

This is where I went wrong! The back was fine but the front awful.

I’m including the diagrams from the book to show the process. I haven’t included the actual instructions - you know that this isn't intended as any kind of tutorial (perish the thought!) but rather to make up for my lack of photos! The one instruction I realise that I didn't follow as I didn't fully understand the way it was written was to make the top of the sleeve front match the back front. Mine didn't.

Looking from the front. front/back shoulder seam along the top.
 Additional fabric inserted measures nearly 2" at sleeve edge

On one side I inserted a patch (or gusset?). I've shown a photo of that here. I slit open the other side and was going to see how much fabric was required but we ended up hacking the sleeve off completely. I mean hacked!

I wasn't happy at all with the toile fit. I have a number of photos - though it turned out I didn't have all the necessary photos - no photo of how the side seams lay.

I sent a lot of photos to Helen. I indicated the problems I was having and suggested changes - largely providing more fabric and therefore more support. I think I anticipated some objection to my suggested changes. That didn't happen.

I came to some decisions and can’t afford to change direction now. I have to get on with it! No more procrastinating by writing blog posts!!

Last night, I went to Dan’s sewing bee.  Of course, no Alison but I was able to take the photos.

I was keen to get advice on how to deal with the problems. Interestingly,  once again the bodice waistline was a bit low - I seem to have difficulty working out where the waistline should be.

The shoulders were falling off the shoulder line and I thought this was entirely due to lack of support - however,  Dan showed me that the shoulder was too wide in the first place. She also recommended a change in the design lines.

We also discussed how to construct the facings and generally make up the dress.

So, I'm going back to the original toile - it was too difficult to start to work with a partly altered one. I got confused almost instantly. Despite having to remake all the alterations made previously, it's worth it. So - alter shoulder width, alter neck width, add fabric to back, shorten bodice,  modify design lines. Make facings. Quite a number of changes!  

After the class, I had a telephone discussion with Helen and I feel a lot happier - not despondent about going back to the original block. I'm visiting the girls in 3 weeks or so and hope to have a full working toile in an appropriate fabric made up by then. I have 3 sewing bees with Dan between now and then for any further advice I need.

On another note,  Helen told me that she successfully wore the tartan pleated skirt I made just before Christmas to a Burns Supper. Final blog post with photos here

Naturally she wasn't wearing her Christmas hat and slipper socks!

Okay - quick sewing room tidy (I have been working on it, honest!) then I need to get things ready for golf tomorrow - I'm feeling better enough to try a few holes, I hope (and maybe a few on Saturday if I survive!) - then a teams bridge match at my house tomorrow afternoon. I'm back at college on Thursday evening but hopefully might get some sewing done on Friday - unless we go to Bowes Museum to see a couple of exhibitions there - we postponed from a couple of weeks ago as I was ill. This weekend can be sewing, certainly

Pleated tartan skirt - a wearable toile finished for Christmas

I shared this skirt during its making because I had some problems with working out where to go with it. I started without a pattern,  pleating the fabric so that the sets matched and pulling the pleat in at the top, each by the difference between hip and waist divided by the number of pleats. To make it easy to see - if there are 20 pleats and a 10 inch difference between hip and waist,  then each pleat needs tightened by a half inch.

The skirt was originally intended as a toile for a skirt to be made for Helen with our specially commissioned family tartan. I've mentioned this previously and posted some photos.

In a previous post, I showed the skirt on Missy the model in unfinished form - pleats finished but no waistband as I was still unclear how to finish the closure. I could see on Missy that it sat very high on the waist. The pleats had been stitched down to hip level.

I posted the skirt to Helen who indicated that she liked it though it was too long and too high in the waist. She didn't think it was much too big. She was still keen to have a mini version in our tartan but when I said I couldn't get that done for Christmas, we agreed I'd finish the red skirt to wearable level. Hopefully a wearable toile.

Helen visited for the weekend while she was having a kitchen fitted in her new flat and brought the pleated skirt back with her.

This is what I did (after she had gone so I still didn't have the perfect model! )

• I ended up cutting approx 2 inches off the top of the skirt at the waistband.
• I cut approx 2” off the length. I overlocked the edges, turned over a reasonable hem, having to re-press the pleats and did my first ever machine blindstitch hem. Invisible from the right side in this fairly weighty wool. That was successful and so much faster than handstitching. I don't mind handstitching hems but in this case,  I wanted everything over as quickly as possible as I wasn't happy with the way it was going and didn't want to waste more time than necessary. In any case, this was a perfect fabric for using a machine blindstitch and I wanted to practice that.
• I bit the bullet and decided to insert a zip. A bright red one - a bottle green one would have been preferable. To do this, I had to add an extension and produce a type of lapped zip with a very marked overlap. The zip has to fold over with one of the pleats. I tried various versions, took advice, struggled, came up with what became the final version, tried various ways of anchoring etc. I sewed and unpicked several times. I had to cut into the seam allowance to allow the zip to bend back unnaturally and then sew the cut fabric.  The end result is not satisfactory but Helen felt it was acceptable. I don't have close up pictures. I couldn't bear it!
• I added a waistband with a skirt hook and loop, and a small poppet further down to try to keep the pleat in place.

The photos show Helen wearing the skirt on Christmas Day. Her jumper, a birthday present at the end of November, is the perfect colour to go with it. The hat and socks are something else again! She had been wearing the skirt for some time when these photos were taken. I tried to suggest that when she sat she needed to smooth down the pleats but that's a whole new ball game for her.

She likes it despite its flaws and is looking forward to the real deal.

I could see that the zip was visible with certain positions (here is where it being green would have been preferable, our just leaving the gap,  perhaps with an additional fabric underlay).

I could now see how I could have done the zip - Helen wasn't keen on the modification I suggested (basically it would have involved pleasing right up to waistbands, adding an additional fold (clearly should have been there in first place!) as this would have increased bulk at the waistband and this skirt is already extremely bulky. In any case, this would have meant further major restructuring and time, removing waistbands etc, and Helen reminded  me this was a wearable toile which she wouldn't really wear after she gets  the proper  skirt.

So we compromised on me considerably tightening the skirt at the waist - by about 2” - by moving the closures. The small poppet further down just didn't hold. I had taken thread etc but not a larger poppet so we moved the existing one to a better place. The whole is not satisfactory in my opinion but hopefully Helen will get some wear from it.

I'm still not willing to tackle the proper skirt as I'm  still not sure how to get over the closure problem - I rather think I'd have been better missing out the zip here. I made the modifications but don't have a photo showing the end result.

Another issue is that having top-stitched or rather edge-stitched the pleats down to hip level, cutting off a chunk at the top of the skirt meant that this stitching ended well above the hip line. This level is important so the skirt doesn't lie as well as it should. Okay in a toile but certainly not in the real thing. I didn't change it. In any case, I hadn't taken my machine with me and I'm sure Helen wouldn't have let me in any case!

So what did I learn?  

Main thing, easily above anything else:

When undertaking something like this, it's essential to plan out your steps beforehand! I had simply taken the fabric and started pleating it,  matching the sets, without considering the closure. I didn't have sufficient fabric at the end for the closure, still allowing for the match. This would of course have been much easier if pattern matching hadn't been an issue.

Our family tartan has a more difficult match. The pleats would either have to be much narrower, so more pleats and more weight, or much wider with less flexibility on sizing. We are considering  pleat variations, for example multiple smallish box pleats which may currently be the front runner.

What do you think? Any advice?

Despite its problems, I rather like it,  too. I don't regret trying it, or the time spent.

Pleated skirt - a long ago promise still not fulfilled

Some of you may be aware that my husband got some tartan specially woven. I say some - it's a lot!

This post is not going to cover our tartan sagas - I'll leave that for David. He'll post about that and our tartan silk adventure at a later date

The first time was nearly 15 years ago. The tartan had to be specially woven as his tartan is not a tartan that is woven or even appears in any of the tartan encyclopaedias. We found note of it on an Internet search (we didn't have such searches when we first sought it) and were able to get a company to weave it and make David his kilt. It cost an absolute fortune as we had to agree to the minimum print run as well as a very high price per metre. Nice tartan, though, heavyweight.

David in his kilt, casual mode.

My youngest daughter requested a mini kilt made of the tartan. This was in my pre-sewing days so we were going to have to get it made and that was another stumbling block. We felt the tartan was too heavy and were able to order some medium weight tartan from the same company. There was a long time between the request and the new order!  At least 5 years perhaps a lot longer!  This time, our minimum run was 30 metres but the cost per metre wasn't so high.

I finally thought it was time to consider making up her request. However, it wasn't clear what she wanted. She pointed out various designs. Skirts with a couple of box pleats, some with yokes but she also mentioned kilts and full pleated skirts…

When I made her a skirt recently, it's clear she's now wearing her skirts longer than she used to. She's getting older!  They're still short on her endless legs, though!

Anyway, I finally decided now was the time to try. I have Helen's measurements (I'm going to be customising a form for her next week using a tight fitting ‘moulage’) but there was no point in asking about styles as she is too busy following moving into her flat and thinking about and arranging renovations to consider the question. Originally I thought I'd make a skirt for her birthday later this month.

• First decision - I decided to make a toile. Using tartan but not ours. A much cheaper option. Reasons - I've never tried to match a plaid - well I've just realised that's not true - the skirt above as a slight plaid effect, what do you know! Anyway, I've never made a successful pleated skirt (I did try a skirt with a front pleat way back),  and couldn't be sure that the size would fit.
• Second decision - I decided to make a full pleated skirt.
• Third decision - I wasn't going to use a pattern.

I looked at Winifred Aldrich’s book ‘Metric Pattern Cutting’ and also The Great British Sewing Bee ‘Fashion with Fabric’. The latter has good instructions but for a kilt. The former’s instructions are minimal and only cover the fabric folding not construction techniques. Both say to work directly on the fabric, no pattern needed.

So I worked out how to make the pleats. I folded, refolded and folded again until I thought it was looking okay. I ended up with a pleat width of approximately 2 inches. I didn't measure the main body of the pleats as I was folding with the pattern. This test tartan effectively had one plain dark green section alternating with a red striped section. The blocks were rectangles rather than squares.

My pleats were looking okay and I basted them by hand.

Next section was to reduce the width of the waist. This meant that each pleat had to be pushed over a bit more at the waistline. The calculation for how much is effectively ((hip size - waist size)/number of pleats).  To give an example, hip size 36” less waist size 24” is 12” so this amount has to be lost in the pleats - so if there are 24 pleats,  each pleat has to be narrowed by ½” at the top. These are not the actual measurements I used,  just numbers to make the concept clearer. The amount I had to lose on each pleat was somewhat larger and I had 20 pleats.

Showing the waist section; machine basting along waistline and hand-basting 3 inches down

Here came my first (known about) major mistake. I carefully adjusted each pleat, tapering out the adjustment back to zero at hip line and tacked again. Then I realised that the waistband would be fastening the wrong way around. Fortunately, I was able to turn the skirt upside down. I had to undo my tacking, recreate the waist at the other, now correct, end and release the modified waist. Then re-tack.

Looking okay.

So now I just had waistband to do. Closure. And hem.

I realised I had no idea how to do the closure. Winifred didn't help. GBSB was for a kilt not a skirt. I asked my Thursday tutor. She wasn't sure. I wondered about ‘no closure’ - I'm sure I remember having a skirt like this with just a hole inside the overlap and as my tutor said,  this is how pockets are often done. Eventually we decided I'd try an invisible zip, which in turn would be concealed under the pleat. In the meantime,  David suggested a series of hooks and eyes, hook and loop tape or poppets. I bought some hook and loop tape.

I tried the zip and it didn't work. It's possible a lapped zip could work. Not sure. The Velcro is a good idea,  I think. Although I topstitched the edge, it isn't held down so Velcro would solve that issue.

I pressed the pleats, then top stitched them down to hip level.

Before pressing

After pressing

Next discoveries:

• I think the skirt will be too big. Not sure, as there is a lot of bulk at the waist. It's certainly too big on the dress form.
• I don't know how long to make it.
• The red pleats and the green pleats are not the same width.

Now I had to remember this was a TOILE or even a proper test garment,  testing out pleating etc, not a finished garment. It can't be for Helen's birthday.

So, I am going to post it as is. No waistband, no closure, certainly no hem.  If it is too big, there's no point in continuing with this particular attempt. I may get a better idea from Helen about length and style for a future attempt.

I've learned quite a lot. Particularly from my mistakes

• How to work with wool
• How to pleat
• The importance of planning the whole garment before you start. I'd I had stated the pleats differently, the closure would have worked but not as I did it.
• The confidence of working without a pattern
• The stuck feeling when I don't have a pattern to hold my hand!
• The sinking feeling when my tutor doesn't have ‘the answer’!
• I'm rather to hung up on researching methods and practising on samples and over-thinking rather than just doing. This was an attempt to just do.

I photographed and then took out all the tacking. I found that the pleats had slipped open a bit at the waist, despite the 2 rows of machine basting along the waistline and the row of hand basting further below. This may make the waist bigger than I had intended.

Once the tacking was out, the pleats gape more than perhaps they should . In a kilt, the pleats are much smaller than they are here - perhaps I should have more pleats, more closely spaced if attempting this again. That would mean that the overlap for reduced waist would be smaller and more manageable and there would be a greater ability to alter for size. As things stand, to remove even just one pleat would greatly alter the size. And I might be wrong, but think I would have to remove two to get the pleats to match?

On the form, tacking still in place

On the form, tacking removed. Are the pleats too wide/

Again, although the skirt is too big at the waist on the form, I couldn't get it closed properly at the side.
You can perhaps just see the top stitching

I'm very comfortable with how I've left this. Helen may not like it at all and that's okay as I've had some practice. I rather think a skirt like McCall's 7022 would be more suitable - lighter weight and more youthful. A full pleated tartan skirt would be difficult to look after. However.  I'm happy to wait. I'm also sending another skirt toile I'd done for her.

McCall's 7022, view B - I like this view and bought the pattern after seeing it

View B

Now I need to get on with my college homework; not too taxing this week. Then I need to make our evening meal. Warming food for a miserable day,  though it has cleared up a bit.

I'd love your comments!