I love to customize everything, which sort of lends itself to making my own clothes. Let me show you how easy it is to add your own style to store-bought patterns. I’m changing a lot of things about this pattern (it’s going to take 4 tutorials!), so let’s get started! Watch the video below or continue reading 🙂
Okay, let’s start at the beginning.
I saw this pattern, Vogue 1546, and I really like the cut of this dress, the halter is nice, the open back is cool, plus I’m a sucker for pleats. So I thought about what fabrics I have, because I do have a bit of a fabric hoarding problem…so I’m giving myself a challenge to only use what I already have for all of these projects until I run out of fabric!
Anyway, the fabric that came to mind for this dress is this metallic laser cut foil coated spandex!
But I don’t care for this horizontal seam at the hips, and I want to add some binding to the edges.
Also I want to break up the front bodice a bit with this cool embossed leather, so I’m going to add a yoke and a belt. I’ve drawn on the pattern where I want to add style lines and the binding. And then I also have these fun little spiders! I’ll just use one in the middle of the yoke.
I’m going to line the bodice with a light weight cotton poplin. And I’m going to flat-line, or underline, the entire dress with matte satin to give it a nice weight and a little pop through the holes in the laser cut fabric. I’m also going to use this for the binding.
I don’t know yet what I’m going to use for the ties. The pattern calls for grosgrain ribbon, which I do not have, and I’m determined to find a solution with what I have here.
I spent a lot of time draping on my mannequin to decide on what grain line to use aesthetically, and what lining to use for functionality. The foil coated spandex is a stretch fabric, it’s a knit, but I don’t like the look of it when it’s stretched, which is why I’m flat-lining it with a woven fabric, and I picked the matte satin because it gives the spandex a nice drape.
When you’re selecting fabrics, hold them up in your hand and against your body. How do they drape, or flow, around you? Is it flattering for the pattern you want to use? You can always add interfacing or flat-lining to lighter weight fabrics for more body, and some heavier or stiff fabrics will soften after washing.
After I made my fabric selections, I cut little samples and made mock-ups to test how they sew together on the different grain lines. I also checked how the darts will sew, and tested how I’ll be attaching the binding. I can’t do a proper binding at the bodice because of the way the back attaches. So you’ll get to see how I do fake bindings which is kinda fun!
I always make little mock-ups when I’m using a new fabric or new technique, so pretty much every thing I make gets a little mock-up of some kind 🙂
After playing around with the fabrics for a while my finger tips turned dark blue! That’s because the foil coated spandex is crocking, which is where the dye comes off onto whatever it’s rubbing against (black dyes are always red-based or blue-based, so the backing fabric must have been a blue-based dye). So I washed that fabric and the cotton lining too. It’s good practice to wash your fabrics (assuming they’re washable!) before you cut into them.
Now to select a size. Don’t always trust the measurements on the back of the pattern. Check the finished measurements that are printed on the pattern pieces (you might have to hunt for them) and you’ll probably find that there’s about 3” of ease. I find that too much ease leads to poor fit, so I often cut a size smaller than the card suggests.
Now I want to transfer the pattern pieces to real paper. I ironed the pattern with low heat and no steam, pressing on the back of the tissue paper so it will lay flat. I’m using a tracing wheel to transfer the pattern lines and markings onto dotted pattern paper for each piece that I’ll need. Then I can draw it back out in pencil and label the pattern piece.
After I’ve traced out all of the pattern pieces, I like to go through and trim all of the 5/8” seam allowances to 1/2”. The throat plate of my sewing machine has a mark at 1/2″, plus it’s much easier to sew curves with a smaller seam allowance. So I’m going to take 1/8” off all of the seams. I don’t take it off of the hems, and definitely don’t take it off of the folds!
At the waist it looks like the bodice curves up in the front, but I want it to go straight across, so I gave it a 2” seam allowance and I’ll pin it right where I want it in the fitting. I marked out the stitch line, and then added the seam allowance from there. Continue the darts into the new seam allowance and then cut out the pattern pieces.
Here everything is cut and I’m going to combine the upper and lower skirt pieces so there’s no weird hip seam. This is the back skirt – you can see how much is taken out of each side. Normally I would slash and spread the lower skirt panel, but that will give me a HUGE skirt, and it will be way too wide for my fabric, so what I’m going to do instead is slash inside each pleat and spread it to line back up with the lower skirt.
First I’m marking 1” below the top of the lower skirt panel, which is where I want the upper skirt panel to line up. This is another nice thing about working with half inch seam allowances – easy math!
I slashed the pattern, making straight cuts through it, and spread the fullness between each pleat. I’m lining it up on the 1” line as much as possible and taping it down. Then tape it onto another piece of pattern paper to fill in the holes.
Draw across the top of each new part of the pleats and cut off the excess. Then fold the pattern to line up the end points of the pleats and mark where the notches are going to be because some of them are different now. I’m notching and punching the holes for the pleats to finish the pattern.
Do the same thing on the front. There’s not as much difference here so just use little pieces of paper to fill the gaps.
Now the pattern is ready to try out, so I’m going to cut it out of muslin. I’m only cutting the front and back skirt, and the front and back bodice for the fit sample. Line up the pattern pieces to the grain of the muslin and cut, notch, and mark the holes.
With the cut muslin pieces we can start sewing the fit sample. First I’m going to mark the darts and pin them.
It’s best to sew from the edge of the garment and end at the point of the dart. When you get to the end of the dart, your stitch should be right at the edge of the fabric fold. Don’t back-tack, instead pull the fabric back and leave long thread tails.
Then use a pin to tie a knot in the threads right at the base of the dart. Smooth the darts around a ham to press the darts the way that the pattern suggests.
Now I can mark the 2” seam allowance on the front bodice.
I’m cutting a bit of twill tape for the halter ties and sewing them at the shoulder seams.
I’m also going to finish the neck line so it will be accurate in the fitting. I stitched along the edge at 1/2″. This gives me a mark to fold to and a sturdy point to snip the curve to, plus it makes folding back the edge easier. So I’m snipping at the curve, anywhere that it looks like the fabric is puckering when I try to fold it under.
Then press the fold, and sew it down. Repeat for the arm curves.
For the back pieces, I don’t want to bother with a zipper for the fit sample. I’m just going to pin it on myself. So I stitched the center back closed, pressed it open, and then I finish the top and bottom at a half inch like I did on the front bodice.
I’m only going to sew the left side seam, so I pinned the side seam matching the upper edges.
Then press it toward the front and top-stitch the seam allowance down. Leave the other side open for the fitting.
The first thing I want to do on the skirt is sew the center back starting at the notches. Then sew the side seams, matching the notches. The back is shorter than the front because they’ve cut out part of the dart so that’s okay that they don’t line up, just match up the notches.
Now I’m going to line up and pin the pleats. An easy way to do that is to put a pin through one dot, and then pin through the other dot, and push the fabric to the base of the pin. Now you can smooth the fold and pin the pleats in place.
Then mark the stitch line if you didn’t do that earlier…
Once it’s all pinned and ready to be sewn, back-tack the start of the first pleat, sew one side of the pleat, then stop with the needle down in the middle of the dot. Lift the presser foot to pivot the fabric, and then finish sewing the pleat, back-tacking again at the end.
After those are all sewn, you can press the side seams and center back open. Then “press pleats as shown” per the pattern instructions. So the front pleats fold towards center front, and the back pleats fold toward the front also except for the one closest to the side, which has to fold back. I really don’t like that pleat, it looks weird in the picture, it doesn’t make sense here, I’m probably going to get rid of it.
As I’m pressing the pleats I’m also pinning them in place. Then I’m sewing pleats down around the entire waist of the skirt. The instructions say to cut away the excess inside of the pleat, but I don’t like to do that. I’ll show you why in the fitting.
Okay so now we have the bodice and skirt sewn and ready to fit. I’m leaving them separate so I can l pin them together in the fitting. I also cut extra strips of muslin and finished the edges to 1.5”. I’m going to use these for a belt, and pin that in place in the fitting also. So we’ll do the fitting in another tutorial!
Do you like to customize your patterns and clothes too? I’m in the habit now of adding pockets to everything. What do you like to add or change? Share in the comments!
