Little Black Dress: Embellished Cape.

As part of my Little Black Dress project I designed an embellished cape which would be worn with the dress that I had made (See posts below). To make this cape I had to go through the usual stages that include: Pattern Cutting, Toile Making, and finally Manufacture of the Garment.

The Pattern Stage:

To create a pattern for my cape from scratch, I dressed the mannequin in my finished dress and added the shoulder pads onto the stand. I then took measurements and marked them on paper; the measurements I took were the centre back, centre front, shoulders and back neck. I then drew lines to make a very basic pattern which I then cut out. Using the slash and spread method to add  fullness; I slashed the pattern at 4cm and 8cm and spread them 10cm each – taping the pieces in place, I then added 5cm -0cm to the side of the centre back (from bottom to top). I then added a 1cm seam allowance and cut it out. I then cut it out in calico to sew my first toile.

 Pattern Drafting

 Slash & Spread Technique

Cut out in Calico

The Toile Stage:

Sewing my first toile was simple and easy; shoulder seam first then press to the back, and then the side seams and press to back, taking a 1cm seam allowance. I then fitted the toile on a mannequin and as you can see in the images the toile is very basic and needed a lot of alterations; starting with the shape of the shoulder. 

1st Toile 

To create the desired shape I used pins to shape a curve that would taper off the shoulder to the side seams. I then took the toile back off the mannequin and using the pins as a guide I drew a curved line using a pencil, I then took out the pins and sewed along the line and eventually cutting off the excess before trying it back on a mannequin to check the fit of the new shape.

 Shaping the shoulder

New Shoulder

After changing the shape of the shoulder of the cape to a much more curved and softer shape; I had another fitting on the mannequin. I was happy with the shape of the shoulder but decided to add more fullness to the side seam as it was lying a bit flat against the sides. To add the fullness I simply added 5cm – 0cm, from bottom to top, to each side seam. I made these changes to the pattern pieces before cutting out again in calico and sewing up another toile.

 Adding fullness to pattern pieces

New Pattern Pieces

2nd Toile

After sewing my 2nd toile it became more clear that because my design was intended to be made with a Georgette fabric; the calico was a hard fabric to work with in terms of working out how the cape will drape and hang, therefore a further toile had to be made using a lighter weight fabric with similar properties of the intended fabric (georgette) that would be used for the final cape.