The last time that I managed to take pictures for this skirt, I also did this Lekala 5166. BUT while I was uploading them in Iphoto, something went wrong – Iphoto quit “unexpectedly” – and the pictures were GONE. Already deleted from the camera and nowhere in Iphoto. I could have cried.
2 weeks later, I’m looking for a picture for a friend and I ended up founding the pictures of the dress in the photostream of my Iphone. My friend could not have cared less because I was trying to find for him the picture that a Haitian Government official uses as a chat profile pic where he happens to be topless with 3 rottweilers (yes it’s true… and the guy well into his 50’s). Anyway, I cared more about my dress!!
If you remember, I scared you in this post deciding to use an old school Lekala Pattern, namely Lekala 5166. IT IS scary on paper but in real life it’s just a cute fitted dress! The only change I made to the pattern (made to measure with the Lekala advanced features) was to make it shorter, waaaay shorter. I also changed the seam allowances in the back on the dress and the facings to apply my favorite invisible zipper method.
There is not much more to say apart that I LOVE THIS DRESS and I already modified the pattern to make a sleeveless version out of linen (waiting to be photographed). Next time that I will make it with sleeves I want to remove maybe 1/2″ of ease in the sleeve head as it almost puckered.
The fabric was bought in Mood NYC when I went back in June. It’s from Anna Sui, it was in the silk section but I have to admit that I never saw a silk with such a weave… As you can see on the back I paid absolutely NO attention to print matching. Should I have to? I don’t think I care (which is weird because I’m usually slightly obsessive about this kind of things)!
For the construction I mostly used my 4-thread serger as I am trying to teach myself to use it more. Since you can’t really cout on the instructions here is my order of construction :
Sew the front and back darts
Serge shoulder seams on the dress and the facings
Serge side seams
Serge underarm seam and hem the sleeves.
Set sleeve in armhole, serge the finished seam.
Serge Center back seams separately, attach invisible zipper, sew the back seam, attach facings to zipper and sew facing to the neck of the dress.
Hem the dress
DONE!!
It really is a quick one and the result quite 90’s but nice and easy to wear. The dress form shots :
Did I convince you to use Lekala yet? Is print matching absolutely mandatory? But most importantly: How much 90’s is too much 90’s??
If you are not familiar with the concept of Franken-Pattern Making (you can read about it here and here, unfortunately the original post from Sew-4-fun is no longer accessible), it consists of using sewing patterns for the design details only and mix them with a pattern you already know fits well (your personal blocks/TNT patterns if you want). It’s actually very close (if not the same) to what Carolyn does with her Pattern Sandwich method. It particularly suits my sewing style because 1/ my sewing time is limited and 2/ I don’t always have the courage to make a muslin. I also tend to spend a lot of time on the pattern. Taking classes at FIT (draping and patternmaking) really taught me patience when it comes to working on the pattern. I remember reading one day on Fashion Incubator that you could break up time like this :
1 hour of pattern making, 1/2 hour of cutting, 1/4 hour of actual sewing.
It was enlightening! I drafted blocks in the past, trust me! I started early, by the time I was 15 I decided that pattern companies had it all wrong (haha, teenage overconfidence… I also thought that sleeves were stupid because they could not fit in armholes, STUPID SLEEVES!). As a result I got books and I started drafting, some of the result were TERRIBLE (this was my first book, not good…), some were good (with this book, this one, or this one). But at the end of the day, where are those drafts ? I DON’T EVEN KNOW!! I spent looooong hours making them and turning them into usable patterns. I want to start from something that is already a pattern!
I said it before, I believe that Lekala patterns are particularly suited to play the role of starting blocks (haha, pun intended) or be used for a Focus on Fit approach, because :
I’m very happy with the fit of the made to measure feature. It fits almost perfectly without alterations
They have a wide range of styles, so I can start from something already close to what I want
They are relatively cheap, they don’t add much to the overall cost of the project.
I can print them with or without seam allowances. If I’m going to do a lot of changes I prefer to have none.
But let’s take a practical case so that I can explain myself better!
For Thanksgiving, amazing Jen of Grainline Studio organized a sale. I really admire the level of professionalism she brings to home-sewing patterns but I only made the Scout tee in the past. After seeing all the praise on her work (specially Archer), I decided to go ahead and purchase the Portside Travel Set, the Archer shirt, the Maritime shorts and the Moss mini skirt. Over the last few weeks I came to the conclusion that a short chambray skirt was THE basic that I was missing. To be with fair, I have this type of thoughts quite often, sometimes it’s legitimate (a white shirtdess, black slacks, a pencil skirt, etc.), sometimes it’s more questionable (a shiny midi skirt, leather shorts…). Anyway, my heart is currently set on a chambray mini skirt so I. NEED. ONE. NOW. The technical drawing of the Moss skirt is exactly what I want, but after looking at the size chart and Pattern Review, I know that there are very little chances that this pattern fits me right out of the enveloppe printer. My hips are size 4 and my waist is size 0…
So I went on a search on the Lekala website, looking for something as close as possible. I set my heart on number 5430.
Lekala 5430Grainline Studio – Moss Skirt
A comparison of the 2 drawings shows the design changes that I’m going to make to the Lekala pattern. But in addition, I like to embed construction in my pattern as much as possible. This means often changing the zipper parts, reducing seam allowances, etc. For this case, I settled on the following changes:
Design :
eliminate the back dart for a yoke
chop off the top of the waistband
and add a back seam
Construction
The Seam Allowances are dependent on the type of Seam Finish. I will serge and topstitche all visible seams on the inside. This means 1/2″. The seam between the skirt and the waistband will be encased so I will use 3/8″. But the top seam of the waistband will be only 1/4 to eliminate the need for grading it later. Hem will be double-folder : 3/4″and 1/2″.
Pockets : i read how pleased people were with the pockets being attached to CF on the Moss skirt and how deep they are so I want to keep this feature BUT I also liked the 1 piece pocket bag from the Jedediah shorts by Thread Theory I just completed so I will incorporate that too!
Fly zipper : I know everybody has it’s favorite technique, and people seems to feel very strongly about them. My best fly zipper of all times (and it was not only luck since I used it several times) was completed using this amazing book : Design Room Techniques by Laurel Hoffman. I know it’s pricey but it’s worth every penny. I promise!! Otherwise, I think this one by Notes from a Mad Housewife looks great too!
Now for the visual people out there, I took pictures of the process. First this is what a Lekala sheet looks like for a pattern without seam allowances :
I started by drafting the yoke and closing the dart (TIP: close the dart first, which is not what I did on the picture below so I had to redraw my curve completely…)
Then I added seam allowances on the back pieces and compared with the Moss pattern :
My yoke is a lot curvier than the Moss one, which makes sense since I have a bigger hips/waist differential (please not that I should have aligned the straight grains before taking this picture)
The Waistband pieces have been modified to be thinner and to have the extension needed for the fly zipper. There for there are 2 pieces fro the front and one is longer than the other.
For the front, I added seam allowances and drafted the zipper pieces from Laurel Hoffman’s book, using a 5″ zipper instead of 7″.
Interstingly enough, it seams that although the back are almost exactly the same width, my Lekala is considerably larger in the front.
The key of this zipper method is that right side and left side are NOT identical pattern pieces. I will remove 1/4″ on the one of the sides but only after cutting since I’m cutting double layer this time.
A better view of the zipper set :
Now the pockets : I did not change the pocket shape from the Lekala pattern as I find it close enough.
But I redrafted the pocket bag, so that it’s deeper, it reachs the middle (Grainline Instructions) but it’s 1 full piece of contrasting fabric (I like to use muslin) to be folded and with “facings” of self fabric (Thread Theory Style). The result is this :
An essential step after all this work is to WALK ALL THE SEAMS and check/correct the notches. This is what will make your sewing really fast because everything will match seamlessly (haha, again).
For the fabric I had a very small leftover of chambray from an old old UFO (which I think I finally tossed). The limited amount of fabric will not allow extra for mistakes, all the more reasons to be extra careful with the pattern.
As you can see on the picture below, I like to cut my waistbands with the grain parallel to the longer side. I think it makes them more stable. You can see all the fabric I have… It’s not much!!
I hope this process post was helpful, as I said in my blog anniversary post, I’m trying to bring more substantial content and not only final results pictures. So I would love to hear your thoughts about franken-patterns, fly zippers, etc. !!
Sooooo, from what I read on other seamstresses blogs I’m not the only one struggling to take pictures. To be honest when it’s between some sewing time and some picture taking time, sewing wins every time… But I managed to make an effort. I praised so much the Lekala patterns that you deserve to see what they look like. So as I said in my previous post, I started with Lekala 4285. It’s a nice pencil skirt with some shaping and pleats at the back. The fabric is a stretch cotton pique from Mood. If I remember properly it was from Theory. It has quite a lot of stretch so it’s actually perfect for a pencil skirt to make the walk easy. I made one alteration that is going to sound major but it’s actually kind of my fault. Between the stretch of the fabric and me being scared of not having enough ease in the hip area (so I stated a bigger hip measurement that usual when I ordered my pattern), the skirt was really big when I tried it on (before adding the facing). I ended up removing 1/2″on each side (total reduction 2″!!). Other than that, I made no alteration, not even the length!! I used seam binding for all the seams. I’m sort of a seam binder maniac. I only got a serger this year and sometimes I get very upset that I don’t get good results right away. Because of my classes at FIT, I took the habit of binding the raw edges of my muslin samples (yes I like to get As…) so I bind quite fast now… But I promised that I’m improving my use of the serger, I try to use it at least once per project.
I think the skirt will get a lot of wear, mostly at work. Of course, being white, it does suffer from a typical Murphy’s Law. Everytime I wear it, I have a 50% chance to drop something on it (think coffee, blood, anything that will show A LOT) in the first hour that I arrive in the office. It would be way too easy if it happened before I left the house, because I could change and where would be the fun of trying to conceal a stain for the whole day!
The fabric definitely appears more wrinkly in the pictures than it is in real life. All the back seams are top stitched as well as the top of the pleats.
If you plan on making of these patterns, don’t rely on the instructions. Google Translate will NOT do a good job translating sewing stuff from russian to any other language. However the technical drawings are quite accurate so they are worth taking a look (or 2, or more…) at.
For the invisible zipper, I used my favorite technique (from Fashion Incubator), I know some people do it differently but I really don’t know why. It works perfectly every time! The adjustments that you need to your pattern are the followings:
The seam allowances in the zipper area is 1/2″, from the top to 1.5″ lower than the finishing point of the zipper.
The rest of the back seam is the way you like it (for me it’s 3/8″).
The facings have 0 seam allowance where they are going to be sewn onto the zipper.
Once you did this, you can refer to this post for the sewing order (includes pictures for the visual learners). I never even made the pressing jig (I’m too lazy).
So in my configuration, the pattern looks like this :
And the finish zipper on the inside :
What’s your favorite zipper insertion method? Have you tried the Fashion-Incubator ones ?
Next time I will show you the little 90’s dress but I also already made a variation from that pattern and I finished the Jedediah shorts (YAY!!) so stay tuned, updates are coming!
Sewing Tidbits 