April 8, 2008...1:36 pm
A shower of petals
When I sketched the original design for Hettie’s bridesmaid’s dress, I imagined the skirt as a shower of petals. Which is all very well and poetic but as I was sketching merrily away I didn’t think in too much detail about how to accomplish that petal effect!
Luckily, somewhere I remembered having seen a similar skirt (which may have been what subconsciously inspired me to draw it in the first place). A little leafing through a few books and I came across this sketch of a dress from 1921-22, by the mighty Vionnet in from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 2 (1860-1940):
Isn’t that lovely? Has anyone tried making it? I did play around for a while with the pattern piece for the skirt of this dress (to the right) and some muslin on much smaller than life-size scale, but it didn’t really work out for me. The finished result had a lot less movement and fullness that I was expecting. The movement was all in the very edges of the petals, whereas I want the whole skirt to move. Also, I don’t really want to get involved with setting in all those triangular points at the waistline! So, I’ve decided to cheat to try to achieve a similar effect.
The first scheme was to make the skirt out of a series of semi-circles, overlapping them in a line, and gathering them along the top so there is a lot of fullness:
But the gathering would anchor the petals together so that I might as well just use one gathered piece of fabric with a scalloped edge. Back to the drawing board. How about more circular shape pieces, stitched to each other a little at the side like Vionnet’s dress and gathered across the top?
I got as far as mocking that one up out of muslin. And it didn’t look that great. Finally:
Each semi-circle has a line of running stitches across the top, then is machined part of the way to the next petal at the side. Then, each individual piece is gathered, the side edges are turned apart and the result if positioned on the sash facing. This works better.
Now, can anyone help with any tips for hemming a semi-circle made out of a crepe de chine type fabric? Are there any shortcuts?!?
Right, now to make a proper test dress to try on Hettie!
7 Comments
April 9, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I love Janet Arnold’s books! I spent weeks looking through them at my mother-in-law’s house… I cannot wait to try my hand at some of them!! But I need to learn how to sew first! Hahahahaha! // Good luck with this project!! I am simply loving following your creative process!
April 10, 2008 at 2:49 am
Well it would have to be a teeny teeny little hem..much like a rolled hem on silk scarves I would have thought. How do you get the drape effect with your muslin mockups? Was thinking that crepe de chine would drape well but muslin?
April 10, 2008 at 4:29 pm
You are right to raise an eyebrow my use of muslin for achieving the right look! One of the lessons I learned along the way in this process is to use a similar fabric for mock ups to get an idea of the drape. But as this is the first frock I’ve ever invented by draping direct on a dummy, muslin was the only fabric I could bear just to hack away at. The next “test dress” will be made out of the right kind of fabric so we’ll see!
Teeny tiny rolled hem? As I feared, sounds like quite a few yards of hand-hemming….
April 10, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Fiona my 10 year old Janome has a rolled hem feature..not that I have ever tried it! do you think your machine has the same feature, my machine is pretty basic!
April 11, 2008 at 4:17 am
I don’t know how Vionnet hemmed that dress, but hemming a curved edge would be scary… there might be something on the Threads website, even if it’s just a closeup of a skirt. Me, I’d consider using my overlocker to make a rolled edge, or maybe do a tiny bound edge - can you go and look at some real live RTW and see what they’ve done?
If you want more help on pattern drafting, there are a couple of books I can recommend - Betty Kirke has one on Vionnet, and there’s a Japanese one that has better patterns and is cheaper (~20 patterns!), but you have to deal with the fact that it’s all in Japanese! Fortunately, they use arabic numbers, wonderfully clear diagrams, and centimetres :-).
They’re often on Ebay, Fashion Incubator has done a review of both of them, and you may be able to get at least the Betty Kirke book through your local library. They’re $50-$70 IIRC, but if you love all that draping, they’re definitely worth it. You might also find some inspiration for your dress, if you haven’t decided on that yet.
Looking lovely!
April 12, 2008 at 9:42 am
Thanks so much everyone for your words of wisdom and encouragement!
Vionnet picot-edged her petals. I don’t think I have the ability to do that on my 40 year old Singer! I’m not sure it actually has a rolled hem feature either. But I’m sure I’ll muddle through.
Anne, thanks for the book recommendations- they sounds super and are definitely on my mental “must-buy books list”!
April 14, 2008 at 8:31 am
I saw a closeup of a collar on the weekend, and it looked like they might have used a wing needle - not a problem with a 40yo sewing machine :-). There’s a Threads book on Fine Sewing that might be in your library - that’s definitely got something appropriate in it, as it’s all done using fairly basic sewing machine stitches.
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