tutorial with graham; technical elements

We met as a group with our tutor, when we were back from easter on the 14/04/2010. As our tutor had not seen out coats, he asked us if we could put them all on the manequins ready for him to look at! Through doing this he was able to study the shapes of them and what alterations we had planned through our pinning and chalked lines on our toiles! He went through each of ours one by one, but the things that he commented on were handy for all of the group to listen to as some of it could be applied to all of our coats! He liked the way that the coats were all slightly different and complimented us for the stage we had got to; produced a first toile of our coats and trousers.. or for me.. shirt! (Although... this tutorial he was only looking at our coats!)

We showed him the photos from the fittings for each of our coats. For my coat, I agreed that pattern was made with a little bit too much allowance; however my tutor commented; it is always better for a toile to be too big than too small! He was concerned in one of the photos that the back side seam was not vertically running down to the bottom as the others did and instead was running a little diagionallyl however, from looking at my toile, he realised this was not the case and I had ensured it ran paralell vertical to the others!!

He advised that to add interest and to ensure the shape was fully historical, I inserted an opening at the back; the diagram attached shows what this is! This was not hard to do, it just meant adding a step onto the back seam of my jacket pattern! He also suggested that I moved the side- back seam closer toward the centre back to lessen the amount of fabric at the waist between the CB seam and the side back seam. This does not mean however taking any actual fabric out of the shape, as this would alter the fit; but simply moving the seam line. I did this by drawing it onto my toile where it should sit; closer to the centre back seam!

Graham then showed us how to deconstruct our toiles to be able to transfer the alterations into our pattern blocks and then create new pattern pieces to use for cutting out our top fabric, or to be able to the toile disassembled pieces to cut out the top fabric from!#

He noted; start by cutting down the centre back and discarding the side of the toile that you have not done your alterations on! #

Next we disassembled the seams of the jacket once you have ensure that they have been marked on both sewing sides. For me.. this applied to all the pother seam except my side back seam; instead of cutting down the seamline which i had taken it in at, I needed to now, cut down the new line i had marked; this was now my new side back seam line despite the pins in the old side back seam taking it in!

after this, we ironed our jacket pieces flat, so as when cutting down the altered lines, we had the most accurate shape possible! Before cutting down your marked lines, ensure they are all creating smooth curved lines; if not.. ensure they do... then cut along them (the small excess can binned) Note: We now had to remember that the new pieces created from our alterations in this session had no seam allowance now, and therefore when placing them onto our top fabric; to remember to add the correct seam allowances!

Graham (out tutor) also told us to, before pinning our pieces to our fabric, and adding on our seam allowances to consider the fact that for our fittings we only used calico fabric; which is very very thin in comparison to our jacket fabrics! (even though mine was thin; due to consideration of heat, it was no where near this fineness of the calico!) Therefore he advised when we were drawing around the our new fabric pattern pieces onto the top fabric, we added a 1/4 cm allowance on the backseam and side seam; (he said it was not necessary to add this to the side back seam too, as we didnt want to make it too big again and have to re fit it again!)
Graham noted that the 2nd fitting should be minor alterations (amount taken in if any) and very little to the fit should need doing; adding this allowance on should not alter the fit, but should allow for the extra thickness of the jacket fabric and hair canvas, breast felt, and shoulder caanvas that would be added into it to support it!

We finished by instructing us all to remember to measure down the side back and side seams and check the measurements were still the same; meaning that they would go successfully back together again! If not.. he advised we draw the curves to be slightly more or slightly less convex/concave to correct this as they should have only altered by a fraction! cut these pieces once again out of calico or from paper to accomodate the changes; and use these new pieces to pin onto you top fabric and cutout from!


Graham then in the afternoon went on to do a sleeve tutorial. He gave us a handout for this and went through it with us; answering and clarifying any questions we had!


See tutorial reflection for my thoughts and smaller discussions we had regarding the next fitting!