Well, last night I pleated up all these huge panels and sewed them together, and now I have a little Flirt. Here's the front, hanging all cattywhompus on a hanger:
You will notice, I'm sure, that the overskirt band is bright purple. That's on purpose. I wanted to visually check the proportion of the band to the overskirt length, and the best way to do that was to use a high contrast fabric. That purple was over in the corner, up to no good, so I used it for something good before it started playing with matches, or something. You know, sometimes fabric just goes all BAD on you, doesn't it? So there.
Here's the back--no buttonholes, just a huge straight pin for a closure:
Throw those comments at me, yall. In particular, what I want to know is this: Is the asymmetrical part asymmetrical enough? Or should it be more angled?
From the Comments
Nancy left a comment about a pleat puzzle. She wanted the magic formula for figuring out pleats.
Unfortunately I don't have a magic formula. In the case of Flirt, I knew the width of the panel I started with, and I knew how deep I wanted each pleat to be. So I just split the panel and added the pleat width. I did it a million times, and used a million pieces of tape.
Nancy has the reverse problem. She wants to pleat up 70 inches of skirt down to 26 inches. Here's what I would do:
70 minus 26 equals 44, so Nancy needs to remove 44 inches of fabric from the skirt waistband. I like the number 44 because it is nice and even. Thank you, Nancy, for picking such a fun number.
Since she has a skirt front and a skirt back, I would divide the 44 inches into two parts--22 inches for the front and 22 inches for the back. Find the center front/back, and put 11 pleats on each side of the center. You'll have to play with it a bit, but if you then divide each front half in two again, you will have 5 1/2 pleats, and 5 1/2 pleats on each side front/back. That should help you to even them out.
The main thing is that you want each pleat to be the same depth for a balanced look.
If anyone out there has a better method for Nancy, please share it in the comments or send me an email and I'll post it.
A Puzzle of My Own
Can anyone figure out what I'm trying to draft here? I know how yall love a little challenge!
And one last thing--hopefully tomorrow I will get to shop for fabric! Wish me luck.
7 comments:
The only thing I'm wondering is if the top ruffle is too heavy compared to the bottom?
You should also make her a beaded flapper girl dress, using just the bottom pleats! She'd also need a long string of beads.
It's coming along beautifully! I think the collar is just perfect, but I do think that the other asymmetrical bits need to be a bit more asymmetrical. That's the great thing about doing a muslin, I suppose!
I put a comment on the previous post (March 9) re Nancy's pleat problem.
I agree with Maria about the top ruffle. I think I would just leave it off altogether or make it long enough to be the whole skirt!
My two cent's worth is that the top pleated part is too top heavy for such a little girl's dress - I would make it longer and leave off the bottom layer...but also make it more asymmetrical. :)
Yup, there needs to be just a little more asymmetrical action going on. I agree that the addition of the Purple band is too heavy and the desired crispness of those pleats is lost. Also, the bottom band of pleats is wonky and looks more uneven that asymmetric.
May I suggest making the pleated section from the bodice a deeper, crisp pleat, so it looks less ruffled? Also, an adjustment of the bottom hem/ruffle area to be more asymmetric like the sketch also with deeper/wider crisp pleating, almost nautical pleating (does that make sense?). Do not change the upper bodice and pleating. That is perfect.
Thanks for the info about pleats! That and Jo's advice helped me understand them better.
I agree with the others, the middle ruffle is unbalanced. I think it needs to be angled more and perhaps shallower.
The neckline is very nice though!
As for the mystery drawing, it could be a castle dress! In purple, with a floating sort of bodice, with the square pattern cut out of the bottom of the bodice! Maybe a bigger scale of the squares on the hem of the dress? You could have two colors of purple for the different layers!
Just some ideas, I can't wait to see what it will be!
I agree with the others. While the design sketch is great, and the collar looks good, the pleated part in the middle of the dress seems a little too big for such a small dress. I think it would work better if you were working on a dress for a slightly older child. For that size, to get it to work, I think (sorry, you did ask for an opinion, and I'm going by your wonderful drawing... ;) I think it would need to conform to the body of the dress more. So perhaps a fabric that didn't poof out so much. Also, things need to be angled more. Again, great idea, but either it has to be worked in flimsier fabric (sorry, I'm at a loss for words ;) Or it has to be on a slightly larger dress. (Or maybe even a shorter panel that's pleated for the center part?)
No guesses on the mystery sketch, but as usual, I can't wait to see... ;)
CD
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