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| Sewing Places – Blog Sewing Nuggets: Crimson Couture – Glamorous Gown Blog submission date: Topic: Crimson Couture – Glamorous Gown Crimson Couture – Glamorous Gown Couture is sewing’s equivalent of gourmet cooking. The similarities are many: special ingredients and tools, new techniques, a passion for the process, and memorable results. In sewing, the experience is about the luxury of first-rate ingredients, taking the time to enjoy the creation, and the delight of a beautifully sewn garment all while carrying on the tradition of a rich and satisfying art form. You’ll find couture gowns like this in the wardrobes of the rich and famous. These dresses are not off the rack, they’re lovingly handmade and out of this world. We’ll show you how to achieve this sewing status in your own projects. For this dress, we chose Simplicity Sew Stylish pattern 3735 (you can use the pattern of your choice) and luxurious fabrics. This 4-ply silk crepe fashion fabric greatly benefits from an underlining’s hidden strength. Underlining supports each specific garment piece differently. For example, the fluid 4-ply silk is accentuated by the fluid silk crepe to chine underlining in the skirt. The bodice, however, needs a firmer underlining, like cotton batiste, to support its shaping, while silk organza works well for the strap underlining. Finally, the whole dress is lined with silk charmeuse. Follow along for how to combine these ingredients into your couture creation. Prepare Your Pattern For Couture Prep your pattern tissue for making a test garment, fit the test garment, then use it as the pattern. Perfect Your Pattern Most commercial patterns call for a standard 5/8 inch seam allowance for the stitching lines, but these aren’t marked on the pattern. So, before doing anything else, mark the stitching lines onto the pattern tissue. Simply mark 5/8 inch inside the cutting lines. These lines will be used to mark the stitching lines on the fabric later on. Make A Test Garment Good sewing projects begin with a test garment (also known as a muslin) made in inexpensive fabric. You can perfect the fit of the test garment, then dismantle it and use it as the pattern for the fashion fabric, lining, and underlining. To make a test garment, iron the fabric, align the selvages with the grain exactly along the fold, and pin the pattern in place. Cut about 1 inch outside the pattern edges to extend the seam allowances for design changes and fitting alterations. Mark your fabric by carbon tracing the stitching lines and pattern markings onto the test fabric. Stitch along the carbon marks with a sewing machine, using long stitches and contrasting thread. (See below to learn how to carbon trace). Use The Test Garment As The Pattern Sew the test garment together with long machine stitches. They’ll be easy to undo when it’s time to use it as the pattern. Check and correct the fit and style lines. For example, I widened the straps. Because the dress is heavy, they’ll do a better job of supporting the gown. After noting the changes on the test fabric, take it apart, and press it flat. Then use it as your pattern to cut the underlining fabrics, fashion fabric, and lining. On your mark … Cut out your fashion fabric and mark the underlinings. Use the separated muslin pieces to cut each underlining. Then, transfer all the important information from the muslin to the underlining. get set … Join underlining to fashion fabric. Hand-baste the marked underlining and the fashion fabric together along the seamlines. Carefully and perfectly align the grainlines of the fashion fabric and the underlining. Join the layers with a simple running stitch using lightweight silk thread, which will pull out easily later. Assemble your garment for a fitting. Underline each garment section, then hand-baste the garment together for a fitting. Baste along the stitching lines, over the other basting you’ve done. Use a contrasting color basting thread for the second set of basting, so it’s easy to see which thread to pull out if adjustments are necessary. sew! Complete your fabulous couture gown. Test your needle size, stitch length, and tension on scrap fabric. Use the exact combination of fabrics you’ll use in the garment. The gown’s construction is straightforward, but add a few of these couture touches to improve it: 1. Staystitch the top edges of the front bodice sections. 2. Reinforce the diagonal upper bodice edges with strips of narrow on-grain fusible cotton tape to keep them from stretching. 3. Be sure to sew the long side seams of the gown from the hem up. It’s always best to sew from the widest to the narrowest points of a garment. 4. Insert the zipper by hand. Use tiny backstitches and beeswax coated thread. Run the thread through the beeswax, and press it to melt the wax into the fibers. Place stitches ¼ to 3/8 inch apart. 5. To create the straps, underline the 4-ply silk with silk organza, staystitch its long edges, and press them inward. Then, hand-sew the silk charmeuse lining around all of the top bodice edges on the underside. Finishing Touches Finally create a beautiful hem A hem is the final finishing touch on a great garment. Here are some options: 1. Hem the lining and the garment separately, in which case the lining is best hemmed with a narrow machine hem. The gown is hemmed by hand, as described in step two. 2. Sew a regular hem on the gown. Use pretty hem lace along the hem allowance edge. Fold the hem up, and hand-stitch to just the underling with invisible hem stitches. 3. Sew the lining to the gown. Hem by folding the lining to form a jump pleat ½ inch shorter than the skirt, and blindstitch together through just the hem allowances. Smooth Tips For Working With 4-ply Silk Four-ply silk is a magnificent fabric. A little careful handling guarantees your success. Here are five ways to keep it trouble free: 1. It doesn’t really have a right or wrong side, but one side may have more sheen. The choice is yours – just be consistent throughout the garment. 2. Steam 4-ply silk before you work with it. It doesn’t shrink, but the fibers will tighten. 3. It’s impossible to see the grainline in 4-ply silk, so rely on the selvage, and be sure to carefully square the crossgrain placement, too. 4. Anything less than very fine, sharp pins will distort this tightly woven fabric, and cause you to struggle to pin into it. 5. Don’t pin within the body of the garment – only pin in the seam allowances. Press To Impress Careful pressing is an essential ingredient of a well-made garment. Here’s how to get it right: 1. Test how your fabric likes to be pressed: Does it like moisture? Steam? A dry iron? Do you need a pressing cloth? 2. Remove all basting thread before pressing. 3. Press seams flat first from both sides, then carefully press them open. Make sure the seam allowances are spread fully open before you apply pressure and heat, because you don’t want to unintentionally press in any creases. 4. Pad out darts from underneath before you press them, otherwise they may show through onto the right side of the fabric. 5. Use a ham when pressing curved seams to avoid pressing draglines into the fabric. To continue the reading of this article please click here to access a pdf copy. Pictures and pdf copy to come soon! Sewing Nuggets presents an article herewith excerpted from Sew Stylish magazine. The article was presented in Sew Stylish’s magazine in the Summer issue of 2007 “Basic Training To Unleash Your Creativity”. Article presenter was Susan Khalje. Susan Khalje, teaches couture techniques throughout the Country. Here is a portion of an introductory quote from here website “Susan Khalje, who was recently honored with The Professional Association of Custom Clothiers' Lifetime Achievement Award, was the long-time host of D.I.Y. .net's sewing program, "Sew Much More," and is a Contributing Editor to THREADS Magazine. She received her professional sewing training at the New York couture salon Chez Cez et Bez, and also worked as a fashion designer and manufacturing supervisor for a Seventh Avenue firm.” You can visit her website at www.susankhalje.com. Susan Khalje is the author of Bridal Couture, Fine Sewing Techniques For Wedding Gowns And Evening Wear. Bridal Couture and Sew Stylish (now Threads) are sold exclusively at Amazon. For further details or to purchase please click on the respective names below: Book Other books by Susan Khalje Magazine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sewing Places http://sewingplaces.blogspot.com http://sewingbooks.blogspot.com http://sewingplaces-education.blogspot.com |
