The 60s Dress Project - Part 1

Every Wednesday at college there is a pattern cutting lesson. During those lessons we are learning how to manufacture four different types of dresses.  The first dress is a 60s styled dress.

 

 

The first thing I did was make a dress bock. This is the basic shape which I start off with for every dress. This is traced on to pattern paper, ready for me to make adaptions. After drawing around the outside the dress block I drew in the darts and the labels. This is my first draft of the pattern.

 

The dress we were making was loose fitting whereas the dress block was semi-fitted. I adjusted this by making the sides straight the sides. This was done by lining our set square with the hip line and draw the line straight up to the arm hole. This was done on both the back and front of the  dress.

 

 

The next thing I did was decide the length of my dresss. I drew down from the hip line to the lenght I wanted and  squared off. I then marked on the pattern where the I wanted the pleats. They had to be 2cm apart; this made the pleats equal.

 

 

For his 60's style dress I had to move the dart which was quite simple to do. From the end of the original dart, I drew another line in the place where we wanted the new dart to be placed. It was best to place the dart a bit away from the arm hole. This stops it from becoming bulky.

 

Once this was finished I got another piece of paper and traced out the 1st draft (front and back). After this I cut along the new dart line on the traced version. I then folded over it over so you couldn;t see the orignal dart anymore.

 

I needed to cancel out the back dart. This was done by measuring the shoulder lenght on the block. From this measurment I needed to canel out 1cm from the arm hole corner. Then I joined the arm whole with shoulder using my set square. I scribbeled out the dart as it was no longer needed.

 

The next thing I did was place the lined patch pocket. Under the hip line is were I placed it. I drew a square to the size I wanted the pocket and then curved the botom corners.

 

I then created a final pattern for the pocket by tracing it out on another piece of paper. I then drew in a 1cm seam allowence around the outline and placed a gran line.