Thursday 25th February

After drafting the pattern from scratch, I traced off the blocks and made the appropriate adjustments to correct the fit in line with my designs. I cut out the pattern pieces and constructed the garment. After constructing the garment and inserting the zip I pressed it thoroughly.




The construction went smoothly and accurately. However due to the age of the book, the fit was slightly outdated so I need to re-adjust the pattern and remake the toile. It was a challenge to connect both sides of the garment to ensure it was fully reversible.

Monday 24th February

After adjusting the skirt pattern following my initial toile draping to one side, I remade the toile.





Next I began to draft the ‘swag’ pocket section at the back. I initially tried to drape this section but found this impossible to do and ensure accuracy. So instead I traced off the back section from my draft and manipulated this by cutting into sections and adding extra into each section. The first draft of this section of the toile was far too small and didn’t draft accurately so I redrafted it.





Only when I attempted to attach this to my garment was it obvious something wasn’t right.

The toile seemed accurate until I inserted the zip which proved that in fact, the two back sections were not accurately matched.



Upon review of my draft, there was no more than a couple of millimetres out, however due to my inaccurate sewing the inaccuracies were amplified. Also the zip I used was incorrect and I made the decision to use an invisible zip instead to ensure a nicer finish to the full garment.

Thursday 11th February 2010

After a tutorial with my tutor I began to ‘grow on’ the stirrups to the standard legging pattern. Following adapting the pattern I manufactured a sample of the ankle and stirrup to test the pattern.




These adaptations were accurate so I manufactured the whole leggings to test the whole garment. The garment now has an accurate fit and looks appealing.

I manufactured the tailored trouser toile.

Upon construction I realised that the garment was high-waisted rather than on the hip. I reduced the waist to take them down, closer to the hips. They were also too long and too wide so I made the appropriate pattern amendments.

After re-tracing the pattern blocks, I manufactured the modified toile.

Thursday 4th February 2010

Working from the book “Winifred Alrich Womenswear”, I took direction in drafting my own tailored trouser pattern from scratch.

After drafting the standard pattern I manipulated the block to tailor the legs closer to the ankles and to insert pleats into the waist band to add an extra design feature. After I adapted the draft I cut out the paper patterns and manufactured a toile.

Monday 1st February 2010

After making some readjustments to my design line up I chose to change the printed tailored stirrup trousers into printed stirrup leggings to add another fabric and extra skills plus a different style of garment to the collection. I also decided to change the plain trousers on outfit three into tailored trousers with a pleated waistband.

I used the block patterns to make simple leggings patterns and had a tutorial with the technician to learn how to use the cover-seamer and made up an initial toile of the leggings.

Update

So it's been a little while since I have updated on this but it has been a bit crazy over the Christmas / New Year / Moving home and moving back to Derby setting myself up for the next semester.

Before the Christmas break, I completed my first version working drawings and production sketches, as you can see below:















I have been working on some designs for another project so the collection has taken slight a back seat.

When working on my collection I have been focusing on the shirt dress and have done three toiles in total now but it is still a work in progress. I am struggling particularly on the neckline and collar, the rest of the garment has progressed quite well and is at some kind of plato which means it is at a satisfactory point now.

Laser cutting

Monday 30th November
10-am: i had a silk screen printing induction with Jo Newton.

I then spent a small amount of time working on my toiles this morning but they weren't really going very well and I needed to progress with my laser cutting samples.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon working on my images for the laser cutting then went to work with John Angus to figure out the appropriate settings.

I initially did a test for my jewelry / book cover, engraving onto glass. We had some troubles setting this up and there is a glitch in the program which meant when I converted the file from Adobe Illustrator into APS Ethos it duplicate it which meant that it was unable to fill in the engraving on the letters, so we had to play around with deleting and reconverting the image. Following this there was some kind of glitch meaning that it the laser engraved the outlines of the text but not the body of it, through re-converting into another document and adjusting settings John managed to resolve this.

Next I attempted to cut out the text as a logo for branding and adding on to the garment, the idea was to cut this from viscose leather and fablon. I had to heat press the leather to the backing to combat the fact that it might shrink and change shape. However when we set this up to cut out, the leather had too higher fat content and the power was set to high so it set on fire. John then had to go to a meeting so I had to break off at this point.