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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/29FuODJ:
I started writing a thing about refatshioning– i.e. what to do if you can’t just go to the thrift store and buy enormous garments to cut whole pattern pieces out of to make tiny clothes because you are a miniature person, like apparently all refashion bloggers are.
I cut this part from it and stuck it in my drafts, though, and just rediscovered it. So here’s a weird little side-rant about how to make larger pattern pieces out of small bits of fabric. Namely: the ubiquitous circle skirt, and how it’s bullshit and you should just make gored skirts instead because you can make those out of literal scraps.
Here’s the thing about refatshioning: fabric yardage is precious. Most patterns would have you cut out a big circle skirt– just take yards and yards of fabric, and draw a bunch of circles across it. You don’t have that, though.
So I tend to make 8-gore, 12-gore, whatever-gore skirts. Gores are easy to squeeze out of tiny bits of fabric. You can piece them. It doesn’t matter. Just pay attention to the grain of the fabric if you can, and kind of try to make the main body of the skirt hang either on-grain or on-bias; just pick one and try to be consistent.
I learned sewing to make SCA garb, and all medieval garb is based on not cutting your fabric much. It’s mostly squares with triangles set in. So I do that instinctively, and easily. The rule of thumb with the tunic skirts there was always to sew straight to bias, bias to straight, once you’d cut triangles to make your skirts. Bias to bias is okay, but it will stretch, and you’re going to have to trim it afterward. It won’t matter with a light garment, but a heavy one, it might.
Anyway. There are a shitload of great tutorials on how to calculate and make your own pattern for a n-gore skirt. I can’t do math, though. So what I do is I kind of guesstimate, and then make it much bigger than I have to, and gather it to the waistband. This works if your fabric is light and not bulky. If you find your fabric is too bulky, pinch out excess and then cut it away, and re-sew the seam smaller.
My point is. You don’t need a pattern, you don’t need to do math. You just need to fold things in half and guess a lot. Look at your materials, maybe take something that fits you and lay it out on top to be an impromptu pattern, and see what you have, and what you can cut out, and if you have a big piece, use it for something big, and if you have to piece a bunch of little pieces, try to put that somewhere in the garment that a) isn’t under a ton of structural stress, or b) looks cool, or c) is under stress and you can reinforce it with something.
I started writing a thing about refatshioning– i.e. what to do if you can’t just go to the thrift store and buy enormous garments to cut whole pattern pieces out of to make tiny clothes because you are a miniature person, like apparently all refashion bloggers are.
I cut this part from it and stuck it in my drafts, though, and just rediscovered it. So here’s a weird little side-rant about how to make larger pattern pieces out of small bits of fabric. Namely: the ubiquitous circle skirt, and how it’s bullshit and you should just make gored skirts instead because you can make those out of literal scraps.
Here’s the thing about refatshioning: fabric yardage is precious. Most patterns would have you cut out a big circle skirt– just take yards and yards of fabric, and draw a bunch of circles across it. You don’t have that, though.
So I tend to make 8-gore, 12-gore, whatever-gore skirts. Gores are easy to squeeze out of tiny bits of fabric. You can piece them. It doesn’t matter. Just pay attention to the grain of the fabric if you can, and kind of try to make the main body of the skirt hang either on-grain or on-bias; just pick one and try to be consistent.
I learned sewing to make SCA garb, and all medieval garb is based on not cutting your fabric much. It’s mostly squares with triangles set in. So I do that instinctively, and easily. The rule of thumb with the tunic skirts there was always to sew straight to bias, bias to straight, once you’d cut triangles to make your skirts. Bias to bias is okay, but it will stretch, and you’re going to have to trim it afterward. It won’t matter with a light garment, but a heavy one, it might.
Anyway. There are a shitload of great tutorials on how to calculate and make your own pattern for a n-gore skirt. I can’t do math, though. So what I do is I kind of guesstimate, and then make it much bigger than I have to, and gather it to the waistband. This works if your fabric is light and not bulky. If you find your fabric is too bulky, pinch out excess and then cut it away, and re-sew the seam smaller.
My point is. You don’t need a pattern, you don’t need to do math. You just need to fold things in half and guess a lot. Look at your materials, maybe take something that fits you and lay it out on top to be an impromptu pattern, and see what you have, and what you can cut out, and if you have a big piece, use it for something big, and if you have to piece a bunch of little pieces, try to put that somewhere in the garment that a) isn’t under a ton of structural stress, or b) looks cool, or c) is under stress and you can reinforce it with something.
