Happy week-end everyone! Just thought I'd share some more pictures and a
quick how-to of the spanish cockerel print dress I posted on Instagram a while back,
using fabric with a repeat print.
A basic shift dress pattern is an easy one to get started with for this, just make sure
any darts on your pattern are at the side seam of the bodice and not elsewhere.
I know this is not not rocket science, but a diagram would have saved me a few head
scratches very late in the evening when I was sewing this!
1) Mark the point on your fabric where you want the centre front to be (in the drawing
below, in the middle of the heart)
2) Find the mirrored half of the pattern (the right side of the heart) when you have an
appropriate amount of fabric for the fold.
3) Now that you have marked your two "external" mirrored centre fronts, go back and
find the midpoint between the two. This will be your actual centre front. Extend the
centre front of your paper pattern to this point by growing it from the original
centre front, and cut your fabric on the fold from here.
Keep in mind that you want a deep enough fold to make a strong feature and that
some of the folded fabric is likely to lay under the bodice and lay underneath the
shoulder as well. Your cut off point is ideally the bust point if you want to
keep the fabric as one piece. Any further than that and you are in dart territory
and it may not lay flat.
If you are working with a very large print and you have to go beyond the bust point,
at construction stage I would trim the folded fabric in one vertical cut at the bust
point on each side and sew back together. Then you'll have a nice, sharp underfold
that dosen't interfere with the dart.
To sew, stitch down the length of the fold at the centre front, to below the bust
point, otherwise it will keep flipping open.
Oops...I know mine are not perfectly lined up (...it was very late at night!), but if you
are working with a repeat print like this I think still better than having half bodied
cockerels cut in half randomly on the front of a dress!
No excuse for the back either, in an ideal world that should have been one piece.
I just didn't have the extra fabric needed to match this up either. Don't forget to
bargain for extra fabric you'll need if you are trying this!
I just didn't have the extra fabric needed to match this up either. Don't forget to
bargain for extra fabric you'll need if you are trying this!
The cockerel wax print cotton fabric is from Fabric Godmother - there's a heap of
beautiful fabric on sale at the moment.
beautiful fabric on sale at the moment.
Happy sewing!
