Problems with Bias

I just now received a comment on an old post regarding bias cut. I thought it was worth re-visiting the subject and posting my response here.

Anonymous said:
A wonderfully informative article, Dawn!! I had a bias cut dress sewn recently, but while the drape in front was very good, the back has one large fold of fabric, almost like a pleat, right across from seam to seam just above the butt. Why is this happening?

First, Thanks!

There could be a couple of things going on.

It could be that the dress is too snug across your butt and hips to slide down past them. However, were that the case, you would probably have horizontal ripples, or waves, across the fullest part of your hip or butt (see below.)

Given the absence of obvious stretching across your hips, it sounds like there may either be too much width-wise fullness over the small of your back, or the waist is too long for you. In the latter case, the long waist does not show up in your front b/c you're relatively flat there and it just slides down. There is nothing for it to get "hung up on."

If there is too much width across the small of your back you could take in the back side seams only. But you have to be careful.....pulling width wise on the bias will cause it to draw up lengthwise in the back. I have tried to place princess darts in the lower back of bias garments with moderate success. You have to be very careful to get them placed right and avoid wavering while you sew.

If the waist is too long you could add a seam, perhaps an empire seam. Again, great care will have to be taken to sew it neatly in the bias and after the seam is added you may need a closure of some kind. Obviously the dress is going to get shorter, at least in the front, unless you add some kind of trim to the bottom.

In cases where a bias dress is too tight over the butt/hips (i.e. there is rippling across the fullest parts), here is how it could happen, even when using a perfectly fitting pattern (and I learned this the hard way):

Bias will stretch so much that the width of the garment pieces becomes significantly narrower. To make matters worse, the waist shaping at the sides seams drops lower as the pieces stretch. So, you can end up with waist shaping quite a bit below the waist and a much too small hip area.

So you have to cut *huge*, maybe 2" seam allowances on the sides. that way, after hanging and stretching, you can let out the side seams at the hips.

Alternatively, you could cut huge bias rectangles and try to stretch the fabric before cutting the garment pieces out. But I'd still leave huge seam allowances.

If anyone would like a custom bias dress my going rate is half a mill per hour.

My Sister's Keeper

I've been reading a lot lately. Haven't had much energy for hand crafting at night b/c I've been so constantly busy. But this is the first book I've felt compelled to recommend.
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is about a family dealing with the illness of one of the 3 children. More than that, the youngest child has actually been conceived via IVF as a genetic match and tissue donor for her older sister. She, and her older brother too, face a constant struggle for identity apart from their sister and her cancer. The parents are understandably pre-occupied with the sick daughter. Everyone lives in constant fear of the inevitable.

The story is told alternately through the eyes of the individual family members. Each person is believable and compelling. I do think I was most moved by the youngest sister Anna, though. She is the one who has been, since the very moment of her birth, providing cells and tissue for her older sister. She's smart, funny, and insightful. The oldest brother is a self-proclaimed, self-created juvenile delinquent. But he is not so bad as he seems. We actually hear the least from Kate, who has a rare and particularly aggressive form of leukemia. Besides the kids and the parents, there are a couple other key characters, interesting in their own rights, who participate in the narration.

Yes, it's a sad story. Sadder than I even imagined at the end. Definitely not your typical mindless beach read. But there are some really truly funny moments as well. And it is at times quite uplifting. Still, wander not far from thy tissues.

I was completely hooked on this one. It's my daughter's book. We stopped on a whim at Stop and Shop one night on our way home for books. I chose two others (neither worth writing about) and she chose this one. After I finished my two, I started hers. Fortunately she has a lot of studying to do for finals b/c I could absolutely not return it until I'd finished.

The ending of the book is surprisingly...well...surprising.

I've ordered 4 more of Jodi Picoult's books from the library.

Jacket for a Little Prince

If you're familiar with The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry you know what a special gem of a story it is. There is nothing quite like it that I'm aware of. Well, I have been sewing day and night to come up with stage costumes for a show based on this book. They are mostly done but I've only had time to photograph one, the Prince jacket.
It's crushed velvet with chartreuse silk dupioni trim and red satin lining. He also wears a ruffled blouse (the lace ruffles of which I plan to replace with a subtle metallic gold silk organza...sometime in the next few hours), and wine red faux suede pants. On his head is an open turban of the same wine red. Actually he is a she, played quite professionally by an 8 year old actress!
I have also made 8 "cosmic clowns" and 8 "mirages" (sand creatures) for this show but it's been so crazy trying to get it all done that I haven't photographed them. I will try to take some pictures at the theater, though, the actors being children, I am not sure what I can post here. I may have to photograph empty costumes which is a shame, because they look wonderful on the kids, in motion, with head pieces and attitude!I am continually amazed at how these shows somehow manage to come together. In this particular one there is a full size bi-plane on the set! The kids have memorized hundreds and hundreds of lines and are even taught to improvise when something goes wrong on stage.
Here is one little theater secret...do you know that bows are choreographed? They are rehearsed as well! That's all I'm going to reveal though!

Thanks and Follow Up

How thrilled I was to come home from 8 hours in the car and find such nice comments on my humble blouse project! Thanks so much!

Here's a few follow up answers to the comments:
Alexandra,
I am the opposite of you...I get enticed by the prints then wish I'd done something solid. Solids are infinitely more wearable/useful!!!

Keely,
Yes, Made-for-You are in the McCall's line. However, there are also some Simplicity patterns that have cup sizes. I am using a Project Runway pattern now that I was surprised to discover had cup sizes. I don't think it even said so on the envelope!

Marietta,
I matched the center front. then, for the other pieces around I match the bottom only. In other words, I make sure that the hems are at the same level on the pattern. Beyond that, it's mostly coincidence.

Susan,
Every time I turn around I make some kind of mistake. So, the best I can do is try to keep going straight, you know?

One final note on this pattern should anyone try to make it...I took about 1 1/2" out of the sleeve fullness. Why? B/c I had run out of fabric with all my re-cutting of mistakes!

A Monumental Achievement

I know, it's not a big deal, it's a blouse. McCall's 5426.

But it's the first thing I made myself since the Vogue jacket of October of 2-double-ought-7. I managed to do most of it on 3 nights when my family was on a trip.

Sewing at night is a mistake. I've told my students this. But...it was my chance and I took it. As a consequence I had to re-cut all the interfacing and half the facings. Also, I incorrectly sewed on the stand about 3 times. I had it in my head that it had to be lined up with the center front, not the edge (there's an overlap) and I stared and stared at the picture and it just didn't click... Well, finally it did, but I'm embarrassed to tell you how long it took. Suffice it to say that the sun set and rose at least once in the interim.
So anyway, I'm knee deep in costumes, but here's the blouse. Oh, and these Made-for-You patterns are great. I saved quite a bit of time by just cutting out the right cup size. (I still used my high bust to select the pattern size.) I made my other usual alterations - narrowing the shoulders, shortening the waist, lowering the bust (ahem) and adding upteen inches to the hips. It fits perfect, better on me than on Gerlinde here. But my daughter, Her Highness, can not be bothered to photograph me at this time. She is doing homework, don't you know, not to be disturbed ;)

Neat and Tidy Facing

Here is an easy, beautiful way to finish a shaped facing.

De-constructing this from the outside in:Above is the finished facing on the center front princess piece of McCall's 5426.

Opening it out, you see I have used self-fabric for the interfacing. Now, ideal would have been some cream colored batiste or lawn, but I don't have that at the moment. So I have oriented the self fabric so that the wrong side (which is lighter) will face the outside of the garment when folded in. Why a sew-in interfacing for a blouse? Well, why not? Especially with this method, where you are going to sew the interfacing in anyway to finish the edge of the facing. Sew in interfacing is less risky...it won't bubble in the wash! But, yes, you could do this technique with a fusible as well if you like. Orient the fusible so you sew it right side of fusible to right side of facing, then understitch, turn the fusible side in under the facing and fuse.

Opening the facing/interfacing out one more time, you see the seam between the two. I have used a 1/4" seam allowance b/c to use 5/8" would have made the facing a bit too thin. I have also understitched the interfacing to encourage the interfacing/facing seam to roll to the underside and become invisible.
You could use this technique to nicely finish any kind of facing. I especially like it for a keyhole opening, waist facing, or, as in this case, a blouse center front.

One final note: I always tell my students to do the most difficult sewing tasks (i.e., cutting) when they are freshest. But, as Jedi Master Yoda would say, "Practice what I preach, I don't." So, I cut all the blouse pieces out last night. I was thrilled to have them done...until this morning when I discovered I had cut all the color, stand, and interfacing pieces doubled so that I had two right sides of everything. Nothing was mirrored! Duh!

Made-For-You Patterns

(yeah, that's me, I lost weight and got a perm!)

Well, I just started to cut a blouse pattern out for myself. I've had this one, McCall's 5426, since last spring. But I'm determined to make some decent things for myself. I'm tired of buying blouses at the mall that shrink up to useless wrinkly rags after a couple washes.

I didn't even notice that this pattern is labeled MADE-FOR-YOU. Apparently, this means that there are different bodice fronts for different bust cup sizes. Eureka!!! It's about damn time.

But then I was left with a quandary...should I use my high bust measurement to chose my pattern size, as I usually do, or my full bust size?

So, I compared both front pieces for the C-D cup with the front pieces for the smaller cups. It appears that the neck and shoulders are identical. So, I will chose the same pattern size that I would had I expected to have to do a FBA, according to the high bust measurement. We'll see how this works.

Let's hope I do better with this blouse than I did with my daughter's winter coat (still in a pile of tissue/fabric pinned pieces.) If I do, then I need about 3 more blouses. Not to mention pants that fit. I used to make almost all my clothes. What happened to that??

In any case, if you're bigger than a B-cup and need to regularly make an FBA, why not search for this MADE-FOR-YOU line? I haven't seen it promoted much, but it's there....and maybe if they sell a lot of them, other pattern companies will follow suit.