Archive for the ‘Clothing’ Category

My brother recently returned from Liberia, Africa. He spent a year building wells for Water of Life. He had a great experience and learned a lot about the African Culture. I have always loved traditional African fabric prints – all the bright colors are just fantastic – and I asked him to bring some fabric [...]

My friend Rebecca had a little girl almost a year ago. For Ella’s first birthday I decided to make her a very “girly” birthday dress. I found two fabrics that I absolutely loved. One a turquoise floral and the other blue with white polka dots. I decided to start off with a cute pattern from [...]

It’s been so long since I’ve posted that I almost forgot how to use WordPress.  Things have been so busy lately that I haven’t had a chance to sew since Christmas.  Hopefully spring will allow me to sew more.  I barely finished my Easter dress on time, see below for the finished product.  I didn’t [...]

My pattern making teacher showed us how to make a fun and super easy wrap.  This pattern calls for only one yard of fleece fabric, a serger and some scissors.  It was so much fun to make that I’m giving all the girls in my family a wrap for Christmas (hopefully they won’t read this [...]

Shirts! Our next project. Take a look at several variations of a standard t’shirt block. Standard T’Shirt Pattern In This T’Shirt I adapted the block pattern to a V Neck Here I changed the neck to a Boat Neck Shape with Lettuce Edge Sleeves In this Tee I tried the Wrap Neck in a shimmery [...]

This week in class we worked on patterns for skirts. We drafted a Flip Skirt and a Stratight Skirt with a slit. Here are two of the skirts from pattern to finish. Flip Skirt Pattern Finished Flip Skirt Slit Skirt Pattern Finished Slit Skirt with Slit (and really bad photography)

During class this week we learned how to draft a pattern for dresses. We start out by drawing our ideas on a drafting sheet. The sheet contains all the information you need to draft and sew your pattern, including description, fabric, hem length, etc. Once you have drawn out your ideas you need to transfer [...]

After the first week of class I had to dust off my serger. Usually I use my regualar sewing maching to sew purses, but for clothing a serger is more efficient. A serger allows you to finish your seams at the same time you sew them. Unfortunately, a serger also requires more than one spool [...]

This fall I decided to take a pattern drafting class through Furman University. The class will teach us how to draft skirts, shirts and dresses. For homework we are asked to sew the patterns we draft. Usually I design bags, but I thought it may be fun to learn pattern drafting for clothes. Here are [...]