Once upon a time in Jaipur ... A Dabu jacket- Part 1.

This is the story of how this jacket came into being.

Actually the tale begins four years ago in Myanmar in this weaving shed.

Having been trekking in the hills in the North where there was no time or opportunity to wash my clothes- any water requirements meant a trek to the village pump-

so my rucksack contained only dirty laundry and I longed for something clean to wear.  Hence my purchase there of this rather boring looking hand woven top.

It has been my constant travelling companion ever since.  It can be worn as a blouse (loose and cool in hot countries) or layered over a t-shirt or wool sweater (depending on how cold the weather gets), has pockets and doesn't show the dirt.  I have been meaning to copy it for some time and the recent Club "Trace your favourite garment" Sewalong gave me the impetus to do so.  I used tips from this video  by Ana of CocoWawa Crafts on Youtube.  Watching it really helped me to approach copying in an organised manner, especially the advice to make a list of all the pieces you need to trace before you start.  I used my current favourite tracing material, horticultural fleece, to trace off the pieces; I describe my method on this blog previously here .  Using this method I could pin the pattern pieces together after tracing and check the fit and whether the seams were true.  Right first time!- Thanks Ana.
The story now moves to Jaipur, March 2017, where I joined a delightful group on one of the textile holidays organised by Jamie Malden of Colouricious
This holiday focused on Block Printing using traditional carved wooden pattern blocks.

 We enjoyed a number of workshops at different venues trying out block printing methods.  One of these was dabu, a mud-resist form of printing that has been in existence since at least the 7th century A.D.  A thin paste is made from a mixture of mud, gum, lime and wheat chaff and the wooden pattern block dipped into this and applied to the prepared fabric- just like this:

Next sawdust, of which there is plenty from the making of the wooden printing blocks, is sprinkled over the printed fabric and it adheres to the wet sticky paste.

The fabric is then left to dry in the sun.

Once dry it is taken to the indigo vat for dyeing.

 The area covered by paste and sawdust resists the indigo dye.  You can see the areas of resist clearly on these cloths that have just been removed from the vat and spread to dry.  The dabu still remains on the cloth.

Subsequently the cloth is washed to remove the paste and reveal the lighter design.  This is a simplified explanation of the technique (much more complicated designs can be achieved with multiple dyeing) but this is exactly how I made the cloth for my jacket.

Coming in Part 2- the making of the jacket.  In the meantime I leave you with some pictures of fellow sewists in the village where we went to do this type of printing.
A tailor making a shirt :

A woman stitching a quilt:

Tracing the pattern from a RTW garment

Have you traced the pattern of a ready to wear garment, one you bought in the shops?

It can be a great way to get a sewing pattern because it is a clothing item that you know fits well enough to want another one just like it.  Or at least with as few adjustments as needed. Preferrably the ones you know how to do.

I bought a lovely short-sleeved blouse with intriguing double layer ruffles from a charity shop.  I did realise at the time that I keep going for this very pale blue, chalky looking shade and then end up not wearing it because it makes me look pasty, to be brutally honest.  Do I learn from this and stop buying clothes or knitting yarn this colour?  Heck no, course not.

So it seems that I bought a pattern instead.

It took me a while to start taking this blouse apart.  I saw the great tip of leaving half the blouse intact so I can see how it goes back together - I only need one set of pattern pieces after all.  I'm glad I read that on a helpful blog somewhere, I'm not confident that I would have realised.  Start wielding a seam ripper and I keep on going...

This blouse fits fairly well.  The dart is not quite in the right place and I need to suppress a wedge of fabric in the underarm area, I am optimistic that I know how to adjust the underarm seams as well as the sleeve width. Fingers crossed.

I flattened each piece carefully, straightened what edges need to be straight (e.g. the centre back that will be cut on the fold), and weighed the whole down with my trusty pattern weights.  Also known as glass coasters in another life - I use them with the felt feet pointing up, they work fabulously.

I drew around each piece making sure that the shapes make sense: an armhole needs to look scooped and not jagged, no corner should look too sharp or seamlines lie in an undulating S-shape.  So far so good!  The test will come when I sew this up in a toile fabric.  I haven't got that far yet.

I did add more generous seam allowances because these were very narrow (the blouse was industrially made after all) and I may have to re-do the flounces. These are a circular shape that looks a bit like a Viennese whirl. Mine have an element of squashed doughnut to them, so I may compare to a commercial pattern I have in my collection. Just to sense-check.

I also traced some stretch fabric leggings that I loved but nasty moths had left a gaping hole near the knee, damn them.  I'm delighted that this worked really well too.  The pieces look astoundingly legging-like, just like a commercial pattern!  At least I like to think so.

I ripped apart most seams on one half only.  I ended up with the back piece and also a flat front piece that I left whole even though there is an internal seam that dissects it in a very intriguing style line.  That's the reason why I wanted to trace off this pattern.  I'd be looking for a pattern like it till the cows come home and not find it.

If I had ripped these pieces apart I'd end up with a very thin strip for the side panel. I think it would be very tough to lay this out straight.  A piece as narrow as this would go wonky as soon as you look at it.  Instead I traced the entire front piece, and then started to roll it back gently and marked the internal seam every couple of centimeters. That was a great way to prevent problems.

Have a look at the photo:

I reckon I've done well for not having traced off patterns in a pretty long time.  I haven't yet put these pattern pieces through their paces, but I live in hope that it'll go well too.

You may be able to trace a simple garment off without having to take it apart, as long as you can get each piece to lie flat.  But shapes would get distorted too easily if trying to trace off a complex item with multiple seams like my blouse.  I am lucky, I can't wear either of them so I didn't have to worry about it.

Have you sewn anything from a traced off pattern, how did the whole process work out for you? It would be really useful to hear of people's experiences - always good to learn from others. Please share in the comments!

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Clever idea: cut your fabric, not your paper pattern!

I just came across this very clever idea of how to cut out your garment fabric pieces without having to cut your paper pattern.

Here at Tilly and the Buttons: How to Cut Fabric Without Cutting Your Pattern (Much)

Such a good idea!

My approach was that I tried to retain the smaller size lines by going around the bits that stick out at curves etc only to have to fold those bits in - just so I can keep the paper pattern intact in case I ever want to make it again in a smaller size.  And that means that I had already given up on the bigger sizes!

This clever tip allows you to keep all the sizes intact so if you have the feeling that this might become a tried and tested pattern to make over and over again, here's the best tip I've ever come across on that: trace it off!

You can mark all your other parts (that you won't cut out) like darts, notches and other markings at the same time.  So efficient, what a great use of your time!  I am all for tricks that make things quicker.  And more accurate in this case too!  Brilliant.

What I also really, really liked about it:  Tilly gives the great tip to pin the pattern to the fabric first (or set weights down) but far enough inside each piece so you can slip your carbon copy paper underneath the edges only.  When I used carbon paper I used to put the paper under the entire piece even though I was never very happy with the result.

Now why didn't I ever think of this?  It just shows that it pays off to approach something from a different angle to see if you can do it a bit different.  Particularly when you've always done them one way - like me slotting the copy paper under the paper pattern as another layer.  It was never big enough and was such a pain to move.

I'll try this the very next time I cut out a new fabric!


PS: Does anyone know what Tilly means when she refers to two kinds of tracing wheels? One 'the blunt kind', and the other the 'sharp pattern drafting kind'?  I only know of one kind and you have to be careful with it about what surface you use because this wheel can do damage.  Is there a type of tracing wheel I haven't come across yet?

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Can I make a Dress in a Day? Part 1- Tracing a pattern from Burda Style Magazine

Of course, I am addicted to reading Dressmaking Blogs and am always amazed when the blogger says how little time it took to make a garment.  I was prompted to try and make a dress in a day after reading of a top with interesting seaming and a peplum that took only 40 minutes to make.  I had a whole day when I thought I had nothing to do so decided to give it a go.
There was a dress that I wanted to make that appeared to be straight-forward with only 4 pieces - Back, front, sleeves and a facing strip.  It was designed for stretch fabric and needed no closures or fastenings.  It was a pattern in a Burda Style Magazines.  If you are not familiar with these magazines, issued monthly, they appear to offer Dressmaker's Heaven, that is a large number of patterns for a small monetary outlay: for example 17 patterns for £4.75.  However, you might not like all the patterns in an issue plus you have to trace the individual pattern from sheets inside the magazine.  This is when Heaven may turn into Hell so I am going to show how I do it.
Each garment is given a number (106 in my case).  On turning to the instruction in the magazine for that particular number you will see a box that tells you which Pattern sheet you want  and what colour the outline of the pieces will be.  It also shows you the pieces and the number that they are allocated on the sheet .  Below you see the information for my chosen garment (plus some pencil notes of simple lengthening amendments I intended to make to the pattern).

So I need to locate pattern sheet B, with a red pattern line, pieces 21 to 23 for style 106 with the type of line marking used for size 36.  Below is the confusion with which you will be faced (this is sheet B and the pieces shaded completely in pink are the ones for a featured garment in the magazine, unfortunately not the one I chose).
But persevere.  Once the pieces have been located I use highlighter to go over the lines of the size that I want and to highlight any pattern markings, such as grainline, notches etc.  You can see the outline of the first piece for my dress highlighted in pink  across the bottom of sheet B.

Here in the picture below  the pattern markings are highlighted.  You can see I am highlighting piece 22.  Should you decide to make another garment using the same pattern sheet make sure you use a different colour highlighter to highlight that pattern.

I highlight each piece one at a time and then trace it before going on to highlight the next piece.  To trace I use ordinary greaseproof paper, cheap and easily obtainable from supermarkets.  The drawback is the limited width but you can always tape a bit on if  the width is insufficient.  When tracing I find it useful to put something solid on which I can rest my tracing hand, this both helps to stop my hand from shifting the paper and provides an extra weight to keep the paper and pattern in place.  My grader's set square is ideal for this, see the picture below.

Below is the traced pattern on which I have marked details such as fold line, gathering points etc. and size, model number and which issue of the magazine it came from as I shall add it to my file of traced patterns in case I wish to use it again.

Patterns in the Burda Style magazine do not have seam allowances included so you have to add them yourself where necessary.  This does mean that you can choose the seam allowance you want, narrower or wider than the standard 1.5 cm for seams and the depth of hem allowance you require.  I use the grader's set square to mark the seam allowance for any straight lines and a seam gauge,as below, to mark the allowance on curves.

Then, at last, I have my pattern pieces complete and ready to cut out with paper scissors before laying on my fabric.  All this took one and three quarter hours, although that does include stopping to take even more photographs of the process than you see here.  And then I went for a tea break, as I am about to do now.  Part 2 to follow later.