Costing

The overall cost of my dress that I designed came to £21.43 including wasted fabric. This does not cover labour costs. In industry labour costs would be added to this sum.
          It is important to remember that using expensive fabric and quantities of styling details often makes the finished cost of the garment too high for the market which has been targeted. For example my design due to the length being very short and fabric choice of denim would be targeted at a young market group who would perhaps have lower incomes or be in education. This would affect the profit margins.
To alleviate this perhaps the safety pin detail could be paired down to one shoulder.
Additionally the material was bought in exccess due to the fact it was a one off dress and I bought extra just in case however in industry exact amounts of fabric would be ordered to avoid waste. I could have purchased one metre for the dress which would bring down the over all cost to £17.80. Then if i reduced the amount of safety pins to 1 pack which would bring down the overall cost even further to £13.04. This would be a more appropriate price for retailing and ordering in bulk would reduce this number further however labour costs would bring this sum back up.

Final piece

Having completed the construction of my dress there are things im pleased with and things that I could improve. I am pleased with the zip and over all shape of the garment and think Charlotte's design looks effective. One mistake I would alter is I would have overlocked the panels of the sides of the channel seams before sewing, as this made it very difficult to accomplish. I additionally need to practise making my seam lines straight as I felt they could be straighter. Other than these factors I was happy with the final piece and hopefully the designer of the dress likes the overall outcome of her design.

Beginning of making final dress

We started making our final dress. We each swapped designs and pattern pieces with other members of the group so we have each ended up making a different dress. I had Charlottes design.

Fabric dye workshop

We had an induction into the dye room and about different dye solutions for different fabrics. We were introduced to direct dyes which work best on cellullose fibers for example cotton fibres. Direct dyes are hot water dyes and are a purpose dye. The proccess involves warming a bowl of water and the direct dye over a hot plate stirring to ensure the grainules are fully disolved and in a seperate bowl heating salt and water which is then added to the dye mixture. This is due to the dye being salt and heat reactive. The samples need to be rinsed with cold water after to set the dye.

Fibre content of samples:
Cotton silk
Viscose crepe georgetteViscose linen
Devore
Cotton viscose/ satin weave

Selecting fabric for dress

I chose a Denim material based on the biker theme and chose a black colour due to the groups decision of using blacks, chromes, greys only to represent our theme for the mini collection. I did buy a faux leather but was unsure whether to use it or not in my final design as this would deviate away from my initial design. I sourced the fabric from a Haberdashery in Portsmouth called 'Fabric' I chose this establishment to buy my material as when visiting the area came across the shop and found the fabric on the off chance. I decided it was the right sort of denim for my design and it was being sold at a fair price

Denim:

Fabric Width: 140cm
97% cotton
3% elastane
£4.25 per metre.

Faux Leather:

Fabric width: 140 cm
 £4.99 per metre
 

Starting toile

We were assigned a design each of another member of our group. I was given Charis Rokins design and created the pattern pieces based on the drawing. I removed the darts and created seam lines going through the dart points as she drew on her design. She wanted a zip on the bust line seam and one on the side. I had to re-draw the back of the top half of the dress due to a slight measurement inaccuracy. Once created the new back of the dress came out well.

Fabric/ Material tuition and fabric file advice

We were given a tutorial on the best way to assemble our fabric file and how to identify different fabrics. We learnt about the different categories of fabric ranging from natural fibres which are sourced from cellulose or protein sources, aka cotton and linen being plant based and silk and animal skins being sourced from animals/ silk worm. As well as synthetic and man made fibres. I was advised to separate my fabric file into categories based on fibre content that would consequently help me identify fabrics as well as be easy for me to locate fabric types in my file for inspiration for my garments.
I decided on a simple format of categorising my fabric samples being

• Natural (Cellulose/ Protein)

• Synathetic (Man made) 

• Mixed (Fibre content having both natural and synathetic fibres)

sewing skills file

To give a good insight into seam construction we have been asked to compile a comprehensive sewing file. I started creating french seams first which are best on delicate fabrics like chiffon/ organza. More heavy duty seams such as Fell seams are est on heavy weight fabrics such as denim and thus is used on many jeans seen on the market these days. This activity helped me understand how best to handle a different range of fabrics like the importance of different seams to cater for diverse fabric choices. I also feel a greater understanding of appropriate stitches for example the channel seam needed a long loose stitch down one seam line as it would then be unpicked so needed to be loose for this.

                                                                       French seam:

 

Gathering/ Gathering in seam

Channel seam:

                                                            
                                                           Fell seam

                                                              
I will go on to create more seam samples and start zip and pocket samples and begin storing my samples in a folder.

Putting the pattern pieces together and making the dress

We then assembled the pattern pieces and made the dress up in a toile to get an understanding of the complex pattern pieces and how they form a dress thus making the idea of strange panels less daunting. I found this pattern cutting activity very informative and as a novice at pattern cutting it gave a good introduction to the subject.