Thursday, July 30, 2015

Pencil Skirt


You might be thinking pencil skirt is not challenging enough.  Well, I am going to present 2 pencil skirts.  One is just a regular pencil skirt for beginners, the other one is a little bit challenging.

 This one is made out of cotton fabric.  No lining, it is very straight forward.

This next one is made with lace fabric and cotton lining.  When it comes to lining, it is like sewing two skirts together.


Here is the pattern for both skirts.

This pattern is for all sizes.  The measurement between waist to hip for size 4 is about 17 cm, 17.5 cm for size 8, 18 for size 12.  It could vary from person to person.  Measuring yourself is a safe bet.

I am going to give you a tutorial on making the lacy one.  If you are want to make the simple one, you can still follow along.  The steps are the same.

1.  Sew the darts in the fronts and backs, which includes the lace fabric and lining.



2.  Sew the zipper.  I would use invisible zipper.  It simply looks better for this project.  I am not going to show you how to sew the zipper.  The instruction on the package is pretty good.


You have to sew all three layers together.  It will look like this from outside.


3. Sew down the rest of the seam after the zipper but stop at the split.



4.  Sew together the front and back piece.  You will need to sew all four layers.


It is important to pin wherever you need to sew.  This will reduce picking.  It should look like this.





5,  Now, it is looking more like a skirt.  In this step you will add belt.  I used the material of my lining to baste the belt instead of interfacing.  If you choose to use interfacing, make sure you have the clothes kind.  In order for my lining to stick to the lace, I used the spray bond.  It works great.



6.  The last step is to hem your skirt.   Just need to make sure it lines up at the split.





That's it.  

Happy Sewing





Friday, July 24, 2015

Pleated Maxi Skirt


This skirt has 9 pleats.  We will need to do some calculation to figure out how many and how wide the pleats are.

To figure out how wide a pleat should be, simply divide the waist by the number of pleats. For example, someone with waist of 72 cm , which is divided by 9 pleats, the width of a pleat will be 8 cm.

To form a complete pleat, you will need 3 times the width of a pleat we come up with from the above.  Here is a picture.
So the width of the material need for this skirt will be the width of a pleat x 3 x 9, or you can just use the measurement of your waist x 3.  From the example above, it will be 72 x 3 = 216.
Here is the pattern:
Here are the patterns.  Happy sewing.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Little Blue Dress



I found this blue pin striped material in the remnant bin at JoAnns.  It's only barely a yard.  I started to think what I can make out of it.  Then, this dress came to my mind.  It is cute and easy to make. Here is the pattern for sizes 12, 8, and 4.   If you are looking for patterns made from bodice pattern, go to http://sewingclassfordaughters.blogspot.com/2015/07/little-blue-dress.html







The only challenging part of sewing this dress maybe the front opening. 



 I made a tutorial for this part.


1.  Decide which side will be the top flap and which will be bottom.

2.  Move the cut line 1 cm toward the bottom side.  The cut line should be shorter than the trim.


3.  Attach the trim to the top side.


4. Iron it down.


5.  Form the pointed end.


6.  Sew it down.


7.  Attach the bottom flap.


8.  Iron and sew it down.


9.  Back of bottom flap.


10.  Sew the top and bottom together.




If you have questions, please leave a comment.

Happy Sewing!

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

White Dress

It's never too late to sew a white dress for summer.  
Here are the patterns for this dress.
If you don't know how to blow up the patterns to actually size, you can click on the "how to enlarge a pattern"  on top of the page.
Front upper:
Back upper:
Skirt:
Collar:
Sleeves:
Please leave comments if you have any question.
Happy Sewing!

Size Chart

The Sizes that I will use in the pattern making are Sizes 4, 8, 12.  Here is the chart.


 Size                                      4                                   8                                      12

Bust                                      89                                 94                                     99          

Waist                                    68.5                              74                                    79

Back Length                         37.5                              40                                    41.5

Hip                                        96.5                             101.5                               106.7


This is a blog that I am going to use to share the patterns I create.  It is free for everyone to use, but it is only supposed to be used at home or share with friends.  Commercial use, please ask for permission.  Thank you.

Happy Sewing.