Dress making

sandieb

PS re tracing wheel - I believe you use it with the dressmaker's carbon paper.

I guess the outlay is worth it if you are going to do several patterns.

ebaybaby

I always trace patterns before I use them, I never cut a pattern. I "use" lots of extra tissue paper to wrap stuff when I go to Ikea!!! and use that!
It is time consuming but at least it preserves your pattern.

debbym

Firehorse wrote:

The parcel paper would certainly last longer than the tissue paper. Just a question though.....sorry if being dim. Is the idea to trace a pattern for each size upon initial purchase of pattern, quite soon rendering it useless, but having the brown one for a longer period. And how do you transfer onto the brown, without damaging the original?

The only way I can think of is to put a pin through the paper to mark the pattern, then draw round. This is something similar to what I currently use to transfer patterns onto cakes.

Carbon paper - as in the stuff you find in with the office supplies, don't use the dressmaking stuff as it is dearer. Put between the parcel paper (or use lining paper or the back of any old leftover wallpaper) and the original tissue paper. Use the end of a childrens paint brush or something similar - this way you don't ruin the original and have a copy as well - also useful for those mulitsize patterns - means you don't have to cut around them and make them useless for using another time for another size;)
Also if you carefully refold you can then sell the pattern on e-bay and try and recoup something towards the extortonate (sp?) cost of fabric

morganlefay

If you have a paper pattern youu absolutely love and would use over and over again (say a perfect pair of trousers/ skirt etc) you can get iron-on Vilene, Put paper pattern onto Vilene and iron it on, then cut ot the original pattern pieces so paper version preserved for ever. Obviously this only works if you have already got pattern pieces fo r just one size, tho if you were to use a tracing wheel and carbon (as suggested) then you could do several sizes on the same picece of Vilene. Tho I think that's more complicated.
I use Zippy poly bags for my pattern pieces, or I fold them and then iron them on coolish dry iron to make them small and neat enough to fit back in their original packets. hapy sewing, but be careful - it's addictive !

Firehorse

Fantastic suggestions. The pattern is a costume one which my dd wore recently. Lots of little girls were asking if I'd make them one. So was wondering about keeping an eye out for discounted material etc and making a few in my spare time (would stop the evening snacking) to rent/sell on. Not sure about the implications of this.

sheng719

Hiya all! This is to continue this thread for people like me that are novice in dressmaking and pattern reading...I recently purchased some dress patterns and would ike to know what the pattern means when it says on the instruction sheet..."*******With nap". what does "NAP" stand for? can anyone help please? Thanks!:o

stilernin

sheng719 wrote: »

Hiya all! This is to continue this thread for people like me that are novice in dressmaking and pattern reading...I recently purchased some dress patterns and would ike to know what the pattern means when it says on the instruction sheet..."*******With nap". what does "NAP" stand for? can anyone help please? Thanks!:o

If you can brush a fabric in a certain direction, it has a NAP. The most obvious would be a furry fabric, but velvet, corderuoy(sp?),etc behave in a similar fashion. Wool can too.

My first disaster with this was in the 60's when I bought a really trendy corderuoy to make a simple shift dress. How hard could it be??? Being an OS sort of girl even in my teens, I turned the pattern pieces to save material and the nap went up the front but down the back. Saved about half a yard....... bargain when fabric was 1/11 a yard ......... problem was that the back and front of the dress looked completely different colours!!

This happens because the light reflects differently depending which way up the nap is. When you are in a shop pull out a length of the fabric so you can fold it to have the nap in both directions side by side, IYSWIM.

You will usually need more fabric to be able to cut out all of the pattern with the nap in one direction so check if the yardage on the pattern allows for this or not.

Sorry this is so long but hope it helps..........

grimelda

You should also use the 'with nap' layout suggestion if your fabric has a directional design, such as a print which has only one 'way up', if you know what I mean.

Sometimes it isn't obvious if a fabric has a nap, so the tip stilernin suggested (folding it over to compare directions) is a good one.

sheng719

Thanks for all the information about the nap everyone...I am actually attempting to make dresses for me and my daughter as we are attending a wedding in three weeks time. I am strapped for cash and I am not prepared to part with my hard earned money for some dress that I really don't like. ( I am really not into this fashion stuff nowadays..) If I am successful, I would be sharing my fruit of labor by posting the finished product and hopefully this will give everybody the inspiration and motivation they needed to create things that are beautiful...:p

grimelda

In case anyone here is interested, Voguepatterns.com are having a sale. All Vogue patterns $US6.99 until March 31.

http://www.voguepatterns.com/indexfv.html

You have to pay for postage to the UK but if you order a few at once this works out much cheaper than in shops. Vogue patterns are probably my favourites to make.

I hope someone finds this useful.