Hello, my dear readers of the blog “Sheysomnoy.rf”. Now we will learn how to build the base of a straight skirt . Earlier in the article about the straight classic skirt, we said that if you want to sew a skirt of any model, you cannot do without this knowledge. So let's get down to business.
Don't let the size of the text below scare you. In fact, everything is very simple if you figure it out once. I wish you good luck with this! This article will be of particular benefit to beginners in sewing, as I describe the entire process in great detail. Therefore, if you already have experience, make a discount on it)). To start building a drawing, we need to take our measurements correctly. Now I take measurements of approximately 44 sizes.
Initial data (cm): St = 36 Pt =0.5; Sat = 47 Pb =1; Dlb = 20; Dis = 60.
I recommend making the drawing on graph paper rather than tracing paper, as it is very convenient to draw in the cells. You can buy graph paper at any office supply store. It is sold in rolls and sheets. Any option will suit you. When constructing a drawing, you substitute your measurements. The skirt is three-seam (two side seams and one middle back). First, we make a preliminary calculation of the waist grooves. The difference between St and Sat = (Sat + Pb) - (St + Fri) = (47 + 1) - (36 + 0.5) = 11.5. Rule for distributing the difference: 1. Undercut of the middle seam is 1.5 cm. Find the remainder 11.5-1.5=10. We distribute this remainder to the remaining darts: 2. Side seam dart: 1÷2 from the remainder = 1÷2 from 10 = 5; Max side recess 7.5 cm. 3. Rear panel recess (RP): 1÷3 from the remainder = 1÷3 from 10 = 3.3; The maximum undercut of the ZP can be 3.8 cm. Very important note If the difference between Sat and St is more than 14 cm, then two undercuts are made on the ZP.
Drawing of a straight skirt.
Place point T. 1. TN down - bottom line level = Diz = 60; 2. TB down - hip line level = Dlb = 20; 3. From points T, B, H, draw horizontal lines to the right; 4. Grid width: BB1 to the right = Sb + Pb = 47 + 1 = 48. Draw a vertical through point B1 and find points T1 and H1; 5. Position of the side seam: divide BB1 by 2 - this is for standard figures; Divide BB1 by 2 + (from 0.5 to 1 cm to the right) - this is for figures with protruding buttocks; Divide BB1 by 2 - (0.5 cm set aside to the left) - this is for figures with a protruding tummy. Place point B2 and draw a side seam line through it vertically. We put points T2, H2. 6. Side seam dart: T2T3 left = T2T4 right = 1/2 side seam dart = 5/2 = 2.5. We set aside 2.5 cm from point T2 to the right and left. We put points T3 and T4. From point B2 upward we set aside 2 cm - this is auxiliary point 2. A constant value for all skirts that are built on the basis of a straight line, except for the A-line skirt. We connect points T3 and T4 to point 2. We draw up the side sections for the pattern. We bend the lines by 0.2 cm using a pattern. 7. Waist deflections: on the ZP = 0-2 cm (for protruding buttocks - 0, for flat buttocks - 2 cm), we take 1 cm; on the PP = 0.5 - 1.5 cm (05 - for a small tummy, 1.2 - standard, 1.5 - for a flat stomach), take 1.2 cm. From point T downwards, set aside the waist deflection of the PP - 1 cm. We put point T'. From point T1 downwards we set aside the waist deflection of the PP - 1.2 cm. Place point T.” We draw up the waist line under the pattern. Connect points T' and T3. There must be a right angle at point T'. We connect points T2 and T.” At point T there must also be a right angle. 8. Undercut of the middle seam on the seam: from point T' must be set aside 1.5 cm to the right. Connect point 1.5 with a straight line to point B. 9. Undercut of the seam: Divide the line between points 1.5 and T3 by 2. And draw through point 2 a vertical line - the center line of the groove. From point 2 we set aside 3.3÷2 = 1.7 cm to the right and left. The undercut on the waistband is sewn up as an independent element, so it must be shortened above the hip line from 4 to 6 cm. By 4 cm - for flat buttocks; by 6 cm - for convex buttocks. We align the sides of the groove along the larger side, bring the left side of the groove to point 1.5 under the pattern. 10. PP undercut. We divide the line between points T" and T4 by 2. And as in the ZP, we draw an axial line through point 2 vertically to the line of the hips. From point 2 we set aside 1.7÷2 = 0.9 cm to the right and left. The PP undercut is also sewn up as an independent element, so we build it with a length of 10 - 12 cm. Along the center line we set aside 12 cm from top to bottom. We equalize the sides of the groove on the larger side and bring the right side under the pattern to the T point.” 11. If the skirt is BELOW the knees, then to maintain a straight silhouette, reduce the width of the skirt along the bottom line by 1 cm on each side. Set aside 1 cm from point H2 to the right and left and connect these points with straight lines to point B2. 12. The skirt is located at the natural waistline and is decorated with a split belt, so you need to cut off half the width of the belt from the drawing. For example, the width of the belt is 3 cm. We set aside 1.5 cm from the top of the skirt and shade it, i.e. cut it off. Marked in yellow on the drawing. 13. On the ZP, you need to place the control point of the fastener above point B2 by 2 cm. If the skirt is built on a low waist line, then the control point of the fastener is below point B2 by 2 cm. 14. On the ZP, mark the control point of the cut. From point H upward we set aside 18 cm. 15. Belt. The belt is a rectangle 3 cm wide. In cutting 3 × 2 + 2 cm allowances = 8 cm, Length = length (ST + PT) × 2 + 2 cm allowances + clasp opening 3 cm = (36 + 0.5) × 2 + 2 + 3 = 78 cm.
How to create the perfect straight skirt pattern? Part 1
How to create the perfect straight skirt pattern for a non-standard figure? And in general, what is this - an ideal pattern?
This is a pattern that you can use to sew a skirt without trying on or adjusting. It fits perfectly on a woman's figure, it has vertical side seams, correct balance, a tight fit at the waist and hips without creases or distortions. The bottom of the skirt is flat, parallel to the floor.
What can guarantee the construction of such a pattern?
Obviously, only an individual pattern, constructed according to the correct methodology and based on accurate body measurements, guarantees a perfect fit, since it takes into account all the features of a woman’s physique.
And now the question. Why doesn't a commonly used design method give a perfect fit for a skirt, even if all the measurements were taken correctly?
You all know very well that women with a non-standard figure often simply cannot buy clothes in stores because they do not fit well on their figure. And they are forced to sew their own clothes to order.
But, unfortunately, when they turn to the studio, the situation does not improve much. Adjustments to sewn clothes occur during fittings. The shoulder seam is ripped open and re-pinned. And all of us who sew clothes know that this is how the balance is adjusted.
But this is one of the main, main measures! That is, initially, when cutting, balance measurements were not taken into account, although measurements of the length of the front and back are always taken! Why?
Because standard patterns were used. The same ones used to sew products at the factory.
If you go into the interior of the studio, you will certainly see that on the walls, on nails, there are a huge number of patterns and patterns for all sizes and cuts.
The cutter, having briefly reviewed the basic measurements of a woman’s figure, selects from the standard patterns those that are closest to her in parameters and cuts the product according to standard patterns, and tries to make all the necessary adjustments during the fitting.
Unfortunately, this approach is wrong. The more a specific figure differs from the typical, standard one, the more defects in the fit result. Not all fit defects can be corrected by pinching the fabric during fitting. As a result, they remain in the finished product.
Those women whose figure is close to standard or the clothes ordered do not have a very fitted silhouette are in luck! They are much more likely to get clothes that they will be happy with and that they will wear, rather than hang them in the closet and regret the money they spent.
So what to do with those who have a non-standard figure? Create a custom pattern!
And then a strange situation happens. You yourself honestly create an individual pattern according to correctly taken measurements, but when you try it on, you are surprised to see that the fit of the product leaves much to be desired.
How so? Why is this happening? Believe me, I myself have encountered this more than once and wondered, what’s the matter? When, where and what did I make a mistake? I measured my figure incorrectly - this is probably most likely!
Moreover, during measurements, posture and dimensions change, the stomach tightens, the shoulders straighten... And there are no clearly defined points on the body, the distance between which we measure. Therefore, the one who makes the patterns himself takes the measurements correctly!
Since I studied design from textbooks for technical schools and universities, then, of course, the authority of these professional publications was very high for me, and I looked for errors in my actions, but not in the design methods that are prescribed in the books.
When the situation with imperfectly fitting skirts repeated itself several times, and I no longer had any doubt that I did everything correctly, I stopped blaming myself. I wanted to figure it out and understand what needs to be changed in the construction of the pattern in order to achieve a perfect fit of the skirt on any non-standard figure.
One day, looking at a woman’s figure in a side profile, I understand that the standard construction of a straight skirt pattern, according to which I drew it, does not at all correspond to the woman’s physique that I see.
And this difference was critical! They rightly say that a crisis, conflict, problem is always a point of growth!
A person thinks about a problem and, trying to solve it, looks for the reasons for its occurrence and gets to the bottom of things, understands what the root of the problem is. And at some point insight happens! Insight!
A dimensional attribute (measurement) is the size of the measured part of a figure, which does not say anything about the curvature of the surface of the measured area and how this area is oriented in space relative to others.
And the relationship between the different parts of the female figure, their proportions are extremely varied.
The weak link of the proportional-calculation design method is that initially this system is based on the correlation and proportionality of the human figure. But such a correlation, proportionality, simply does not exist in nature. In nature, we are all very different.
In life we observe that there is no interdependence between dimensional characteristics. With the same height, a person can be very plump and very thin.
An example from life. A child going to school may have the chest and waist circumferences of a young man. It is clear that it is impossible for such a child to buy clothes for school in a store. Only sew to order. I myself sewed for such children, and therefore I know about this first-hand.
Those methods of constructing drawings of clothing details that operate on a small number of dimensional characteristics of the body are good for loose-shaped clothing, and are not at all suitable for clothing that has a tight fit on the figure.
Look at these pictures. With the same ratio of waist and hip circumference, women's figures are not the same in the relative positions of the main points. They have different curves, bulges and depressions. A skirt made for these two non-standard figures using the generally accepted method will fit equally poorly on both figures.
What conclusion does this suggest?
Most people have posture, proportions and such an individual ratio of dimensional characteristics that, when putting on mass-produced clothes, they notice various design defects in the clothes (balance is disturbed, creases and folds appear). Clothing does not match the size, shape and volume of the human body.
A standard pattern will not help us in such cases. And its adjustment will not save us. Moreover, even if you build an individual pattern from scratch according to precisely taken measurements, but do not add projection measurements to them (namely, they give an idea of the spatial shape and relief of the body), then the skirt will have a poor fit on the figure.
Projection measurements are key, since they provide an understanding of a woman’s physique.
It's no secret that every tailor has his own design methods, cutting and sewing secrets. Own kitchen. Just like every housewife has her own signature dishes, which always turn out great!
For me, this is sewing a straight skirt with a perfect fit on the most non-standard figure. And now I’ll tell you what tools I use to measure your figure, how I make calculations and how I create the perfect skirt pattern.
The method ensures high accuracy in constructing the basis of the design and does not require fittings to refine and modify the resulting pattern.
Ensures comfortable, confident sewing without unpleasant or unexpected surprises. Which is an extremely important point when sewing clothes remotely to order. And high quality service means the customer’s joy, respect and trust in the master, the growth of his reputation and the inclusion of word of mouth.
Practice without theory is blind, so for your complete understanding of this topic, I will start with the theoretical part. From the way I understand and visualize the very essence of the task, what comes from where and why it is done this way and not some other way.
And drawing skills will help us with this.
Drawing is a way of learning and knowing. This is not superficial drawing, not copying the outlines of objects on a sheet of paper, but construction.
An artist, when drawing some complex form from life, never confines himself only to the external, visible part. He doesn’t just draw lines, he studies, analyzes, thinks, understands and, based on understanding, “builds” a drawing, conveying with light strokes already at the very first stage of the drawing all the design features, proportions and relative positions of the main parts of the depicted object.
The artist does this schematically, using axes and reference points, auxiliary constructions, drawing a “transparent” structure and such a method as “chipping”.
“Cutting” is a generalized transfer of the volumetric shape of an object in the form of a combination of simple geometric bodies.
So we, studying and analyzing the figure of a woman, will geometricize it, looking for similarities with those geometric bodies with which she can be associated.
In general, a straight skirt can be imagined as a combination of two geometric bodies. Cylinder and inclined truncated cone.
Let's analyze this design of two bodies based on end-to-end drawing and additional constructions in order to determine the ratios and relationships that we need so much, without understanding and reflecting them in the design of the skirt, fit defects arise.
A perfectly fitting skirt has a strictly vertical side seam. This is a fundamentally important point.
To find the location of the side seam, consider this figure when the bulge of the abdomen is zero. This can be the case both when the stomach is flat and when the stomach is convex, but in both cases the projection dimension of the convexity of the abdomen is zero.
You can see this in the picture. Vzh=0.
In the diagram in this case, in a lateral projection it looks like this.
Two tangent vertical planes, one of which is in contact with the protrusion of the abdomen, and the other with the protrusion of the buttocks, are located parallel to each other. Parallelism of vertical planes is a very important, absolutely necessary condition when constructing a structure in order to obtain a straight vertical side seam in the product.
In existing methods, when constructing a basic base, three options for the location of the side seam are offered:
1. Strictly in the middle between the back and front halves of the skirt;
2. The side seam moves 1 cm towards the back half of the skirt;
3. The side seam moves 1 cm towards the front half.
In fact, the side seam of a straight skirt always shifts towards the middle of the front half of the skirt and is calculated as the difference between two projection measurements: Vya - Vzh. And this shift is purely individual for each figure.
Now we look at the diagram and figure out how we can determine the distance by which we reduce the width of the front half of the skirt and, accordingly, how much the width of the rear part will increase.
In the next master class, in the video, I will show this point very clearly.
The four arcs of the waist circumference should be equal to each other, and this is also fundamentally important to take into account when constructing a skirt pattern and calculating waist darts. Especially when constructing a side dart. But more on this a little later, when I will tell you how to make a preliminary calculation before constructing a skirt pattern on graph paper.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you what you need to have to remove dimensional characteristics from a figure:
- 1. Elastic waist. It is necessary to place it at a natural level. As a rule, a non-standard figure has a waist that is not horizontal to the floor.
- 2. Centimeter tape. When measuring your waist, place two fingers under the tape and move it from right to left, while simultaneously asking the customer about the most comfortable position for the tape, which should not dig into her body, but also not give excessive slack. You should feel this correct waist size with your own hands. But it doesn’t hurt to check with the customer either. It is possible that she will prefer to have a tight belt in her skirt or, conversely, insert a partial elastic band if her weight fluctuates. This also happens. And it is the waist that reacts primarily to weight gain.
- 3. A special belt with 3 movable measuring tapes that move freely along the belt and one stitched onto the belt. This device is necessary to determine the distance from the natural waistline to the floor from the front, side and back.
- 4. Construction level, on the long side of which make markings in centimeters.
- 5. Metal ruler.
- 6. A sheet of thick cardboard measuring approximately 30 cm by 150 cm. When measuring the circumference of the hips, it is absolutely necessary to somehow wrap the hips with a non-sinking, non-sag surface, and thick cardboard is perfect for this purpose. Cardboard is a great way to correctly measure your hip circumference. In this case, it is fundamentally important that when measuring, the upper and lower edges of the cardboard overlap with each other, forming a cylinder. If you want a tight fit on your skirt, pull the edges of the cardboard tighter, as if you were tightening a belt. You will get a really snug fit in the finished skirt. In this case, the soft tissues will tighten, as if they are compressed, but will not go anywhere, will remain in their place and the resulting measurement will be the minimum possible. When using knitted fabrics, this will make it possible to show beautiful shapes. The “oblipka” exists to demonstrate the beautiful forms of a woman.
Correctly measure the circumference of the waist and hips using a sheet of cardboard for the hips. Using a specially made tape, measure the length from the waist to the floor from the front, side and back. It is important not to get into the hollow between the buttocks. If necessary, place a sheet of paper. It will help you create the correct curve of the buttock line and, accordingly, you will be able to accurately measure the length at the back.
To determine the desired length of a skirt, standing in front of a mirror, you need to attach a piece of thick fabric to your legs and, moving it down and up, find the optimal distance from the floor to the edge of the fabric. One in which the legs will be presented in the most advantageous way.
The length of the skirt is determined at the measuring stage. Since posture and proportions change when shoes have a heel, then when taking measurements it will be correct if the customer puts on the shoes that she wears. With or without heels.
We take projection measurements, using a building level, from the front, side and back, at the same time recording the height of the projection from the waist to the bulge of the abdomen, hips and buttocks. All projection measurements work in pairs.
In the next master class we will do preliminary calculations using the measurements by which we will construct a skirt pattern.
Part 2 of the master class here>>
How to make a clasp on a skirt waistband
If your machine can sew buttonholes, then making it will not be difficult for you. If your sewing machine does not have such an operation, then you can make a loop using a zigzag stitch.
Just pay attention that the loop does not break through the strap, but vice versa. And a button with a stem is sewn onto the strap.
Video on how to make buttonholes on the waistband of a skirt or trousers using a sewing machine.
Connect the side seams of the skirt
Well, now sew the side seams of the skirt, just make sure that there is no fit of the upper fabric and the parts fit together both at the top and at the bottom. If you don't know how to sew without sitting, baste this seam.
Pay special attention to the alignment of the upper sections of the skirt (waist), so start sewing them from the top from the waist line.
Iron the side seams, on both sides of the skirt, so that after finishing sewing the skirt, these seams do not cause you much trouble. Once the skirt is finished, it will be more difficult to iron them. In general, try to fix any operation immediately with a steam iron. Firstly, after ironing, the item seems to begin to be drawn, which gives it a mood, and secondly, such details and knots are easier to sew.
This video shows how to sew a hidden zipper using a special foot.
