Pattern Cutting: Straight and bais grain dresses

In my pattern cutting lesson, I have created two V neck dresses, one cut on the straight grain and one cut on the bias grain.

Cut on the straight grain, front view

Cut on the straight grain, back view

Cut on the bias grain, front view

Cut on the bias grain, back view

I felt that the dress cut on the straight grain was definitely a lot easier to complete as the dress cut on the bias grain kept stretching and twisting as I was sewing, the dress cut on the straight grain did not. I think that my dress on the straight was succesful, however the bias dress could use a bit of improvement with accurate sewing and fit, I had to unpick a lot of mistakes.
I have learnt that when sewing a dress cut on the bias grain, that you cannot pull it through the machine, you have to very gently feed it through to avoid it stretching and therefor looking mishapen.

Pattern cutting: My shirt

In my pattern cutting lessons, I have created a shirt with a pocket, button stand, collar, cuffs and a yoke.

Front

Back

Pocket

Sleeve

Collar

Cuff

I feel that I struggled most with the collar and the cuff's, I struggled to sew neatly and accurately. However I unpicked some of my stitching and did it again to make it appear neater and more professional. I feel that the pocket was quite simple, a lot easier than I was expecting, which I was happy about. :)
I feel that the rest of the shirt was relatively straight forward to complete. I think that my shirt was successful, although I came across a few difficulties, I believe that I can improve on these with practise.

Box Pleat and Inverted Pleat.

Above is a picture of a front skirt with inverted pleats that I made during a Pattern Cutting lesson at College. I found it difficult to sew a straight stitch, so it isn't exactly perfect, but I have given it a go, and now know how to sew inverted pleats, with practise I am sure I can improve.

Above is a picture of a Front skit with a Box pleat that I made during a Pattern Cutting lesson at College. I sewed one of the darts in the wrong place so I had to unpick it and try it again, However I feel that it turned out alright for my first attempt.

Pattern cutting lesson Last week.

The first day back in college, it was a Wednesday so we had Pattern cutting;

These are images of a skirt I made in College, as you can see in the pictures there is a waist facing, an interfacing and a retainer row.

Retainer row: The stitching you can see just below the seam. Stops the facing from rolling up at the seam.

Waist facing: The fabric inside the garment that encloses the raw edge of the fabric.

Interfacing: Light, Medium or Heavy, it is sewn to the facing to stiffen an area of garment. It is often used to stiffen collars, cuffs, and waist facings, etc. The heavy weight interfacing is used to help hold the structure of a garment and keep it's bold shape.

I think I should have sewn the retainer row closer to the seam than I did, however I feel my poor sewing skills are gradually improving with practise. :)

Skirt Blocks

My Basic Skirt Blocks

In our Pattern cutting lessons, we learnt how to create our own Skirt blocks, front and back. This task made me realise how precise our measurements have to be, one centimetre too small, and the garment will not fit. 

I had never really taken into consideration the attention to detail, or work that goes into even a basic garment.

These Blocks are what we will be using to create all our garments through out the year, so I really hope all my measurements are accurate!