Bodice patterns and toile and making panniers.

Bodice Patterns and Toile 

For the bodice of the dresses I will use the same patterns for the bodices for each of my garments, making the adjusts in the techniques and finishes used to make them. This will help cut down my time on pattern cutting and allow me to spend more time focusing on the construction of my outfits and the techniques I will use to make them, for example beading or cyanotypes. This will also help my collection have cohesion, especially as the characters I have chosen are sister who have a similar style but with changes to suit their personalities. 

I started with using the dart position on the front and back women bodice blocks and creating princess seams to create the patterns. After this I lowered the neckline at the front and the back, using the mannequin to measure how low I should make the neckline without being too revealing. I made the two side panels stop at the waist as this is a common theme I have seen in Rococo style garments. I decided to make the back panel able to be cut on the fold or cut twice by folding over the seam allowance to cut back on the amount of pattern pieces I need to use.

I originally made the front panel, sometimes called a stays, to be cut out flatas one piece, even though this would be cut on the fold as this was easier to visualise the patterns shape and how it would sit on the body. I made sure to add notches to my patterns to allow them to easily match up when constructing the seams. I extending this front panel beyond the waist line to make that traditional Rococo shape. 

I found sewing the toile bodice together was okay to sew, but I wasn’t happy with the look of it when I tried it on my model, I first resewd the seam between the front and front side to taper more inwards to remove some gaping around the bust area. This made it sit tighter on my model which was good. I then realised that it was too high on her aswell at the front so I made the neck line lower, keeping in mind the seam allowance for when I sew the lining in to not remove to much fabric, I also want to keep these modest enough for the characters of the Little Women. 

I had previously made patterns for a circle cuff, so I used this for this project but amended them to be neater, making the circle more even and making the wrist bigger to fit to a better average and for my model. I also used this pattern to then create a bigger cuff, adding an even measurement around the whole circumference. This worked well as I knew the shape was successful already. I sewd this into the sleeve RST so that the seam allowance would be hidden inside the sleeve which would then be lined. I testing both sleeves to see which I would prefer.

Panniers

I felt confident going into the process of making the Panniers as I had done this before for my individual architecture project making once the same size and one smaller. As I was confident and familiar in the steps in making these panniers, I wanted to focus further on my sewing and making it precise. I made sure to spend time lining my fabric pieces up so that both panniers look symmetrical. I made sure that every raw edge was hidden, and double turn hemmed pieces that were more likely to be seen as well as overlcoking them. I feel that this has worked successfully as when tested they hold the fabric weight and provide the volume that I wanted. I decided to use lighter colours for these panniers so that they wouldn't show up under the fabric, like a darker colour would, if the skirt fabric was thin enough for this to be seen.