For this section of the project I will take the skills I learnt working at the National Theatre in the Workroom into making duplicates of a blouse and a shirt for the National Theatre Department. in total as a group we are making 40 garments. there has been a workroom set up at university for us to work in and help will be provided by Dexter our teacher. however the project is to try and complete the garment though self learning. I have a real challenge on my hands with time management on this project as it needs to be up to National Theatre standards however due to bank holidays I will be loosing 3 days from a 3 week time period to finish these garments. Lets see how I get on!!!!
Firstly I started with the blouse this picture is of the blouse I have been given to make duplicate of.
After I had cut out the blouse material and mark and flat tack the pieces i cut out the pleats for the blouse from Chiffon. the pleats need to have 2.5cm seam allowance with 5cm seam allowance at the Centre Front openings. I found the purple pen from Moreplan really helped make the process of marking the chiffon allot quicker and it fades after about 4 days so there is no need to worry about leaving marks on the garment.
After all the marking were made on the Chiffon the pleats needed matching up so i pleated the first and tack it down then moved onto the next. this was time consuming but if i didn't do this then the pleats would more than likely move around. once this was complete i tacked them to the CF of the garment.
this hole process took about a day to complete.
Once this was complete I moved on to sowing the darts in the garment and then sowing together the front and back pieces together. this was pretty easy as I had allot of practice sowing the nurses outfits that I made. I then added the lace to the garment and hand stitched this down, I'm really enjoying this process as my confidence in my making skills has improved and i have really learnt to look at a garment and see why i am doing something before I do it. i think you are less likely to make mistakes if you question why you are doing every process first to make sense of it all.
Then I machined the shoulders together.
I overlocked the seams at this point as when the hem and the sleeves need attaching the seam allowance is then tucked into them.
The only problem I cam across with the sleeve was the binding on the opening- it needs to be sown onto the sleeve piece in a triangle so it comes to a point, then the machine needle needs to stay in the sleeve while you move the sleeve round to machine down. its very hard to get this done neatly and i would say this was a weak point of my blouse as I had to re-do this which weaken the material.
Now I will leave this garment as it has taken me a week to complete and I need to wait for more Chiffon to arrive to complete the Centre front and the collar of the garment. at this point i am really pleased with how the blouse has gone. there have been a few problems but overall it has been a very beautiful garment to work on and I have really enjoyed it.
below are some pictures of the process so far of the blouse:
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| This is the pleats sown into the garment on the back. |
