Below the divide, I'm blathering about a flared skirt tutorial that I am currently using and have broken down the measurement parts for how you will get your own custom pattern piece.
Basically, I just decided the other morning that I NEED to make a lolita get up and frolic at AX in it. I actually woke up thinking about a mew (of pokemon) inspired lolita dress. I was super pumped and inspired. However, there's been a change of plans suddenly last night. I went to Joann's, because that's pretty much my craft store staple that I have easy access to, and ugh. Ugly pink fabrics. Nothing got me inspired at all and overall, it just uninspired me. Le sigh. The only saving grace was this one cream with pink stripes and inbetween the stripes had little roses. It was very cute and on a super sale. $8/yd with 40% off plus there's a coupon to get an additional 25% off the total. Sooo normally I'd be paying $32 for 4yd but instead, I'd get out there with a steal of only $15. Ugggh good deal.
But I went home with no fabric and decided to use this fabric that I already have floating about that I bought a month or so ago with the intend of making a lolita type dress. So I have a serious mission to sew a skirt up tonight and if I'm just not feeling it, then I'm going to go buy that cream and rose one tomorrow. Here's the fabric I am using tonight.
And the entire plan has changed. I'm no longer going to pursue a full lolita outfit I think. Unless I get all crazy obsessive over that cream and rose fabric. I've decided that I'm just too in love with big puffy skirts and I really want to wear them, so by summer, I want to be frolicking about in lavish skirts and dresses with petticoats on. I've always pined for exciting skirts and I need to just do it and wear them. Like, what the fuck am I waiting for? I should totally be enjoying wearing that kind of crap now. I also just watched one of my favorite movies "Fido" the other night, which put the 1950s dress back on my love list again.
So the current plan of attack is to kind of combine lolita and 1950s dresses/skirts. I want some of the cutesy-ness of lolita and some of the style of the 50s. I don't really know how to explain it other than I must have fluffy petticoats and skirts to frolic in. Like I want big flouncy dresses to go on a picnic in. Shit like that. Yeaaaaaah.
Oh, and currently, my fabric is prewashing, hence my rambling on here to try to distract myself from how long it feels like it's taking. It's my first time ever prewashing my fabric and I finally convinced myself I need to do it because it's the right thing to do. Go me for being less of a lazy slackerwhore. ffffffff.
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Onto details of the stupid shit I'm doing.
I'm using this tutorial to draft a pattern. It's for a flare skirt. http://egl.livejournal.com/2413999.html
If you're planning on using this tutorial, the number set up is pretty easy for your starting rectangle. I'll just use my numbers for an example.
These are my final measurements that my skirt will be.And I want to have 4 gores/panels and a gathered waist. You can change the number of gores that you want and how much gathering you want in the waist but I just stuck with the doubled waist and 4 gores. Her tutorial used 6 gores but I personally decided I wanted less seams and the hem would still be the same regardless.
my waist - 29"
my length - 23"
my hem - 116"
To start, take your waist measurement and multiply it by 2 then divide it by the number of gores/panels you want in your skirt.
29 x 2 / 4 = 14.5"
Your initial rectangle will be 14.5" x 23"(the length)
To figure out your hem for the pattern piece, for how wide you need to spread the slashings, take your final measurement for the pattern piece and multiply it by 2.
14.5 x 2 = 29"
And your complete hem on the entire skirt would be that number times the amount of gores you have.
29 x 4 = 116"
This tutorial is pretty basic and I strayed from it a bit. I did the slash part but then I traced the flared out pattern onto a bunch of taped together junkmail for my pattern piece. I'm on a pretty stingy budget, so I didn't want to waste muslin right now when I need to pattern test a stay and bang out a pattern for a massive Rococo skirt for the masquerade ball. Bleh. Honestly, I felt like making the pattern this way was a lot of wasted time. Granted I haven't sewn it together yet and all that shit, but overall I felt like the pattern piece I got I could have made quicker without all the slashing and such. But oh well. I understand what I did and it's a lesson learned regardless.
Onto inspirational vomit time.
This is the dress that got me gushing over fluff last summer. Ugh. I'm determined to create something similar to wear. It is a personal mission that must be completed. I have a love hate relationship with the collar situation. I have a good feeling I'm going to chop that off of my version. Those collars just make me feel like I'm 5 again. I just can't do it.
Back view.
I thiiiiink this is the same dress, or almost the same, but you can easily see the lines of it better.
I really love the bottom hem of this as well. This is just a cute fucking dress. I must roll about the beach or park in something similar one day.
Well, that's all for this long ass entry. I don't really have that many photos to share this time. It's all up in my noggin floating about.
Best of times. <3
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