College Knowledge/Boxpleat skirt

Hello Lovlies!

I shall be posting more regulary when I get my new camera for my birthday! I am soooo excited about getting this because it means, better quality photos AND daily outfits post which will be actually DAILY!

This project I am posting about is about my journey on my fashion course and how far I have come. So far I have made 2 skirts, a boxpleat skirt in this post and a maxi skirt which I will put in my next post.

I am really enjoying making clothes although it is stressful it makes me understand what I did wrong and how I could improve next time and eventually get better!

This boxpleat skirt includes inserting a box pleat, facing, yoke and kick pleat and slight flare.

Patterning

1. I began by tracing around a skirt block marking all the notches including the hip lines and darts. The picture below shows my facing design line. A facing gives structure to the waist and finishes a raw edge for a neat overall look. We decided as a group we only wanted it to be 5cm in depth. However, anything smaller than this depth you run the risk of the facing flipping out of the skirt and revealing the itself.

Facing

Next, I drew a design line for where I wanted my yoke on the skirt. The yoke is a horizontal line that is placed at the top of any garment. In this case I placed my yoke at the top of my skirt which is a flattering feature. the depth I added to the front yoke I added to the back yoke so they would match.

PICTURE OF YOKE LINE. 

My next step was to add slight flare. To do this I extended my hemline at the side seams by 2.5cm and then joined it with a straight line to the side of the hiplines. I then extended the CB hemline by 1cm and joined this with a straight line to the CB waistline. With the 1cm CB slight flare it has been placed there for ease and ease alone. This means the person can sit and the skirt will not rip but gives ease of movement. 

PICTURE OF SLIGHT FLARE.

Next I placed on my box pleat design line. For this I placed this 4cm parrell to the CB line, this line starts at the yoke line and ends at the hem. 

PICTURE OF BOX PLEAT LINE. 

Below I started to adapt the box pleat pattern. To do this I traced off the front skirt from the yoke line and below. I then slashed open the box pleat line and inserted an 8cm panel of paper and taped the two original pieces to this. I then created half of a box pleat by folding it as seen below. The CF will be cut on the fold to create the other half of the box pleat. 

2. Also in the image above are the manipulated yoke patterns which I traced out from the first draft marking darts and cutting out. To manipulate them I closed the darts and taped them down. On the front yoke the pattern wasn't lying completely flat so I tiny slash at the bottom of the dart line. I will ease this into the other half of the skirt when I sew it. 
Below are the completed patterns of the yoke with 1.5cm seam allowance. 

3.  Below are the front and back pattern pieces for my facings. The front is cut on the fold whereas the back piece is cut 2 pieces so I can insert a zip. These pieces were similar to the yoke pieces because I traced these from the first draft and then closed the darts to get what see below. I then added SA to them.

To create a kick pleat I traced off the back piece from the yoke below. We extended the hem at the CB by 5cm. We drew a parallel line to the CB line and to finish it off I took my set square and placed it at 45 degree angle meeting the CB line again. I then added my SA. 

Now for the manufacturing.

This photo shows the layplan of my skirt. The pattern pieces are placed and then pinned correctly onto the fabric along the grainline which is a very important process if you do not want the garment to stretch if it was placed on the bias the stretch would happen (I shall explain the bias for the maxi skirt post!).On the left hand side I folded the fabric inside out as three pattern pieces are pinned on the fold to create one piece instead of the skirt having a seam line along the front.

These pieces are the yoke of the skirt which is the top part of the skirt which fits snuggly on the hips to the right measurements and flatters curvacious women espesically when the interfacing process is finished for structure.

This is the interfacing which has blobs of glue on one side where you iron on the specific pieces. In my case I am using the interfacing for the yoke pieces. The reason I used interfacing was because it stiffens the fabric to give more structure to the top part of the garment.

In this image it shows the box pleat which is important with the notches giving the correct measurements. I used the notches to help construct the box-pleat as they indicated where to fold. I then ironed and tacked it at the top of the skirt to hold it in place. 

I then had to attach the yoke to the bottom half of the skirt by placing right side to right side and sewing a 1.5cm seam allowance. 

(A close-up of the top stitching).

I then topstitched close to the edge of the yoke as seen above. this top stitching creates a decorative feature as well as securing seam allowances to the inside of the skirt.

This zip is called an invisible zip which I attacted on the back 2 pieces of the skirt. I had to make sure both yokes lined up EXACTLY to give the garment a more professional look.

This image shows the kick pleat created at the back of the skirt. As I used a colour that matches the fabric is is very difficult to see where I sewed the line to keep the kick pleat looking neat.

To complete the skirt facing I stitched the facings together to create one long strip. I then attached this to the waist of the skirt with a 1.5cm seam allowance.

This is an image of my finished garment.

What I found the most difficult was the top stitching as it HAD to be completely straight and look 100% perfect for the professional just off the rail look. It had to be wearable for a customer and I believed I acheived with learning and furthuring my skills more in my pattern cutting day at college.

I enjoyed making this skirt as I can make more at home and adjust the pattern I made at college!

What do you think?

This skirt is more for the workplace and has a uniformed and formal look of style. Although, it has a certain vintage 1940's look about it with the old fabric I used from my Nanna! You could style this with a chiffon pussybow blouse, wedges, a brown floppy hat and of course red lipstick and the black eyeliner feline flick!

 Oooh and add a beautiful fur coat to brave these tornado-like winds!

Lots of love,