Sunday 10 April 2011

1852-6 Toile Planning and Evaluation

 Proposed weekly plan (04.04 – 10.04)

Monday
  • Finishing first toile as set behind from previous week -

  1. Tacking over sleeve
  2. wadding sample
  3. apply decorative strip down front
  4. mark hem with wadding lines
  5. mark hem lines
  6. tack belt, over sleeve and collar
  7. make pattern from back of skirt
  8. final photos


Tuesday
  • morning – obtain correct underwear from costume store, sew onto mannequin
  • POP and blog tutorials
  • complete bodice lining
  • cartridge pleat sample and start skirt
  • start drafting sleeves


Wednesday
  • finish drafting sleeves and cut from top fabric
  • make up sleeves
  • complete top layer of bodice in muslin


Thursday
  • put bodice pieces onto paper for pattern
  • complete flounces on skirt
  • sew skirt to bodice


Friday
  • Evaluation and photographs


Actual Time Record of Progress (04.04 – 10.04)

Monday
  • Finishing First Toile -

  1. Tacking over sleeve
  2. wadding sample
  3. apply decorative strip down front
  4. mark hem with wadding lines
  5. mark hem lines
  6. tack belt, over sleeve and collar
  7. make pattern from back of skirt
  8. final photos


Tuesday
  • Underwear –

creating extra frills for skirt, adding padding to skirt to get right shape
  • Tacking skirt and crinoline to corset to hold in place
  • POP and blog tutorials
  • Researched engagante sleeve
  • started lining of bodice

  • Cartridge pleat sample


Wednesday
  • Finished lining of bodice
  • Haberdashery for muslin and washed calico
  • Drafted under sleeve then adapted to make thinner and slant more to be more fitting
  • Drafted Pagoda sleeve
  • Drafted Engagante Sleeve
  • marked cartridge pleats on the top of the skirt, muslin on top and wadding
  • cut sleeves from top fabric, finished including hems


Thursday
  • put sleeves together
  • Started back and side of muslin top layer of bodice
  • sewn through cartridge pleats to gather
  • started to measure out and make frills for skirt
  • hemmed calico under layer of skirt
  • hired out mannequin to take home to continue work


Friday (no studio)
  • realised had made mistake with frills, so had to repeat creating them to double length
  • sewed on frills to skirt
  • Completed front top layer of muslin on bodice


Saturday
  • Copied bodice pieces onto paper
  • Sewed sleeve into bodice
  • Pulled in cartridge pleats of skirt and attached to bodice with button hole stitch


Sunday
  • Evaluation and photographs


Time Frame Evaluation

Sourcing correct underwear for the shape of the skirt was not as straight forward as I had anticipated, the design with the pattern stated that the undergarments were made of lots of layered and starched petticoats. As the costume store is limited I had to substitute the multiple layers of petticoats for a large round crinoline, with a layered flounced petticoat on top, to soften its edges. This worked well but did not quite have the shape that I wanted so I had to spend time creating and adding extra calico flounces to the petticoat, as well as padding out some areas with wadding, to achieve the more rounded shape I wanted. Doing this extra work to the underwear I hadn't anticipated as I had previously seen what I wanted from the costume store and thought it would be suitable so did not factor in time to alter it.
Skirt took longer as I hadn't anticipated including the muslin in the first layer of cartridge pleats to create the first flounce. I didn't loose too much time on this as it took a long time to mark the spacing for the stitches so I just marked the calico then left it to one side until I had the muslin the next day. Another element of the skirt that put me behind on time was creating the flounces, I had made a mistake with the measurement so when I gathered them along the cord they only had enough length for half the skirt. As I basically had to re-do the flounces again, adding the extra length this cost me double the time.
Simple things like hemming the muslin on the flounces and the sleeves also took much longer than I thought, as it is quite a difficult fabric to work with.
I was pleased with my time management of drafting the sleeves and bodice layers, I feel I worked efficiently in these areas and although the mathematical element, of scaling up the sleeves and altering some of the shapes, was challenging I stuck to it and managed to get it finished relatively quickly for the task.
One of the most time consuming areas was the skirt, mainly because of the mistake I made, but generally working with that amount of fabric is quite challenging and takes a long time to complete something, like the hemming of the different flounce layers, for the whole length.
As I was able to rent the mannequin from the studio I feel I managed to get the piece completed without too much stress. Having the extra weekend and bank holiday made a big difference and allowed me to complete the toile to a standard I was happy with.
I feel I have learnt quite a lot of technical skills on this toile production and feel my time management and focus on working is getting better. On the next part after Easter I feel I may need to try to stick more rigidly to my time plan if possible, however as we only have three days of the week in the studio due to bank holidays this might be an impossible task. I will have to consider changing my time frame for the remaining three weeks, to get a reasonable time frame to work to.

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