Little Black Dress... Toile Stage

Each pattern piece was then cut out carefully following the lines and then ready to try making in fabric, starting with a calico toile. Cutting a length of calico long enough for my design and then folding it selvedge to selvedge to ensure the grain line is correct was important before placing the pattern pieces on, if the grain line is off the fabric will hang incorrectly. I placed the pattern pieces onto the fabric ensuring they followed the grain line by measuring from the edge to the grain line on the pattern piece, I also made sure the Centre Front was placed on the fold as this will form 1 singular piece once cut in fabric.

 After cutting out each pattern piece in calico, I was ready to sew. I started with the front of the dress by attaching the centre front panel to the side front panels, ensuring they matched up at the notches made sure that the pieces were correctly fitting. Then I attached the side backs to the side front panels and then finally the centre back panels to the side back panels, all the time taking a 1cm seam allowance. The seams were press open and then the last stage was to close the back by inserting a zip and closing the seam.  

Once the toile was completed it was time to have a fitting. The fitting enabled me to see how the dress looks once on, for this fitting I used a dress form/mannequin. From the first fitting I could see that the top of the dress was quite big, all around, and this would therefore need to be adjusted to achieve a better fit. However the lower part of the dress, from the hip downwards seems to fit quite nicely.

As the toile looked far too big I altered it by taking it in at the sides and a little bit on each panel. I pinned the fabric to see how much the dress needed to be taken in. I then drew with pencil where the pinned fabric ended; this would be how much I needed to take off the pattern.  I would then be able to make the same changes to the pattern by taken in the same measurements that I had with the toile; as the pencil marks would be there as a guide once I took the pins out to get the toile off the mannequin.

By the measurements of the 1^st toile the pattern needed to be taken in on each panel; I did this by transferring the lines marked with pencil that I drew whilst the pins where holding the fabric in place to form a better fit.  Once the new measurements from the alterations were transferred onto the pattern; I cut out a new set of pattern pieces out with the new measurements. I then checked that the pieces still fitted together correctly after the alterations before cutting out in calico again to sew a 2^nd toile. 

After repeating the same process of sewing the Centre Front panel to the side fronts; then the side fronts to the side backs, then to the centre backs; to sew the new toile it was time for another fitting. For this toile I decided not to insert a zip but instead fastened the back with pins to create a back seam; this enabled me to save time and materials (i.e. a zip) but still achieve a true fit of how the dress would look once sewn in fabric.  As seen in the images the 2^nd toile achieved a much better fit, the bust is still slightly large but this didn’t concern me too much as the mannequins measurements are not very realistic or true to real peoples figures (most people have a fuller bust than the mannequin, or at least in my opinion).

As I was happy with the fit of the 2^nd toile; it was time to create a facing for the dress, the facing will slightly change the shape of the dress once attached so it was important to try it at the toile stage. To create the facing I placed the centre front and side front pattern pieces together, like they would be once sewn, I then placed pattern paper over and traced off the shape of the top of the ‘dress front’  4cm deep,  I then repeated this process for the back of the dress too. The back and front facing pieces then needed a seam allowance of 1cm added all around (with the exception of the centre front which would be cut on the fold).

I then cut the facing out in calico and attached it to the toile, sewing the front and back facing pieces together first. The facing can be quite difficult to attach because of all the curves you have to sew whilst doing so, and getting the centre front to point properly is also challenging. Once attached a notch is put in at the centre front before turning out, edge stitching along and then pressing. 

Once the facing was successfully made and attached to the toile; I pressed and turned out the whole toile and placed it on the mannequin once more to check how it looked. I was surprised to see how different the shape looked with the facing on; it created a much sleeker look, the smooth curves looked really good and were right for my design. I was pleased with this toile and was happy to move on to creating the dress in the final fabrics.

Although I was happy with the fit of my toile and ready to move on into fabric; a tutor insisted on another fitting; this time with a person. In order to do so I had to close up the back of my 2^nd toile by sewing a seam from where the zip would end, if there was one inserted, down to the hem and pressing the seam open. I then tried the toile on a model and the tutor insisted in taken the dress in even more (I was a bit apprehensive to do so as I thought the model was particularly small and feared the dress would not fit many other people).  The toile was taken in slightly; with alteration of taken 1cm to 0cm from centre front to the bust point and 0.5cm to 0cm at the centre back to the waist; the hem would be sewn in at the originally designed depth of 4cm.  The alterations were made to the toile and pattern pieces and I was told I was now ready to make my final dress.