Gareth Pugh Dress / Longshirt v.2

[marc1975]

Hi,

you already have seen the Gareth Pugh jacket that I did a few weeks ago. Although the result was great, I noticed that the materials I used were a bit too thick, so it turned out that the jacket was too warm when wearing it at a club. In addition, Heirloom had commented that the basic fit wasn't perfect, due to some puckering at the back and the sleeve being too wide at the top and too narrow at the fore arms -- I wholeheartedly agree to what he said. Problem was that I didn't use the Neoprene material for creating the pattern, and didn't know exactly how it would behave later, so I might have been too cautious, making things wider as they needed to be.
Apart from that, I used a leather/Neoprene combination, whereas Gareth had used jersey/PVC for his designs.

Fast forward a couple of weeks: While browsing a fabric online store, I stumbled upon a PVC/rubber material that matches the material Gareth used. 0,5 mm thickness - less than half of the leather I had used before. Absolutely matte (no reflection at all), black, with a textile back.

Hmm... should I order it? After all, I had done it before, so I could do it again, right?


All again, but yet different
Should I just redo the jacket with the zipper in front? Having two versions of the same basic design didn't appeal to me. That's why I decided to take the dress of his collection and shorten it a bit, so it would be more of a "long-shirt". There is also a version available with long sleeves, which I unfortunately didn't find a photo of, so I am posting the short-sleeved version here:

The dress doesn't have a zipper in front, but in the back (hidden).


Pattern
I didn't want to take the same pattern, but rather start from scratch to get it right this time. I downloaded a turtleneck pattern from Burda...



... which I modified quite heavily, changing the collar, making the sleeves a little wider at the fore arms to balance out the proportions, making it more narrow at the waist and letting it become wider again.
I wanted this pattern (especially due to the stretch of the jersey) to really be tight-fitting, with no puckering to appear.
I did a total of three draft versions (with the FINAL material to be used) to make sure the fit was ok.
Funny enough - the turtleneck pattern is less complicated than the jacket pattern I had used before. No darts, no two-piece sleeve, just 1 front, 1 back, 1 sleeve and 1 collar piece.

Geometric pattern
As the new pattern was much more narrow than the jacket, the geometric patterns didn't fit anymore. There are some minor things about the geometric pattern that I didn't like in version 1, so I changed these for version 2.

I always work with cardboard paper, a pencil, set square and an eraser if I find the geometry not to be perfect. As you can see in this picture, it was a lot of try and error (and erasing the pencil marks) to finally achieve the pattern I liked.

Nonetheless, I was much faster putting the pattern together as last time. Here are the front and the back pieces:

Front


Back

That's the current status. Next will be labeling the pattern pieces, cutting them out, transferring them to the rubber and sewing them onto the jersey. I will keep you updated...

[Rosenrot]

Can I just say I'm extremely excited to see how this will turn out.

[michael_kard]

Word. Can't wait to see the results!

[originalre0]

is just amazing , so u start with a basic pattern ?

[marc1975]

Took a day off from work today, so I could work on the Gareth Pugh piece and do some Xmas-shopping

so u start with a basic pattern ?

Yes, I started with a simple Burda pattern:

... but as you can see, the Burda pattern actually is a little shorter, the collar is different (I am using a separate piece for the collar), and the sleeves in the Burda pattern are getting too narrow at the fore arms and are too long overall.

I cut out the pieces from the front cardboard pattern...

... arranged them onto the jersey fabric, and used two-sided "Wondertape" to temporarily attach them to the fabric:

The front piece looks like this before sewing:

Each and every material has it's own quirks. The rubber/PVC material and jersey I am using for this project is much more flexible than the neoprene & leather combination, which makes it harder to position items properly. In addition, I did some test runs on my sewing machine, and it is very hard to sew. The jersey underneath the rubber will be stretched by the transport mechanism, whereas the rubber will stick to the foot of the sewing machine. The result is a totally uneven, very densly spaced seam, if one is lucky to get a seam at all. Sometimes it will just not transport.
The first remedy to this problem is by using the double-sided "Wondertape", which will attach the rubber/PVC to the jersey, so the jersey cannot stretch anymore, as the Wondertape doesn't stretch (at least not as much as the jersey).
A couple of tries later, I found by using very thin wrapping paper and placing it under the jersey, the jersey will be transported properly. Attaching masking tape onto the top of the rubber/PVC, also the upper layer of the fabric will be transported ok, so I am getting an even result:

I really start wondering how they are doing the mass production of these items...

Next will be sewing the pieces onto the jersey.

[Chinorlz]

Likely they used a walking foot machine to help alleviate some of the issues of uneven feeding... using a teflon pressor foot will definitely help as well. Using a water soluble adhesive to hold your two components together for sewing may also be something to consider.

[marc1975]

Finished the front stitching. I worked on this every day of this week after coming home from work. After a long day, spending an hour or two at the sewing machine is a way to relax for me. Most of the stitching has come out quite well, despite the initial rubber transport problems.

walking foot machine ... using a teflon pressor foot will definitely help as well. ... water soluble adhesive to hold your two components together ...

My machine does have a walking foot, but that didn't help that much. I considered the teflon foot, but the lady in the store told me that a foot with two rolls (for plasic, rubber, leather, etc.) would work even better. Well... it didn't :-/ ... so I sticked with the regular foot :)
Regarding adhesives: I've considered the water soluble adhesive, but wasn't sure how much would be left of it after washing, as the remains of the adhesive can only escape on the one side where the jersey is. As I've had some adhesives that left some lumps/clots when washing, I preferred the wondertape, which doesn't dissolve, but also is very narrow, so it's just at the sides of the appliques.

I am still undecided what would be the best way to do the back-side. If you look closely, you can see that an invisible zipper is placed in the middle of the back.



a) First sew in the invisible zipper (and partly the collar), then do the appliques on the backside and then sew front and back together OR

b)first sew on the appliques onto the two halves of the back, sew together front and back, attach the collar and finally put in the zipper

Option a has the advantage that the appliques will match perfectly as the two halves are already aligned perfectly with the closed zipper, but has the disadvantage that the collar can only be partly attached (back-part).

Option b would provide more flexibility with the collar, but the alignment of the appliques might not be perfect, and putting in the zipper is more difficult due to the appliques already being sewn onto the fabric.

Later today I will first cut out the back-pattern pieces from the cardboard, cut them out from the rubber material and then decide whether I will go for option a or b.

[Skye X]

I'm consistently impressed by your projects, especially since you're taking on such complex pieces and improving on them further (symmetrical applique, etc). Bravo, sir.

And a quick question - I've been trying to find some nicer finishing techniques for knits, but have been unable to do so. Is overlock the final word?

[marc1975]

Nicer finishing techniques for knits, but have been unable to do so. Is overlock the final word?

Not necessarily so. There are some (hand) techniques that will allow you to achieve better looking results, but they do take much more time. I've sent you a PM with a link to some more infos on these techniques.

You can also use standard finishing techniques, but you have to consider the stretch of the knit.
Quote from the book "Professional Sewing Techniques for Designers":

"Using facings on knits may seem to be a contradiction in terms. Facings imply structure, whereas knits imply stretch. Shaped, extended or bias facings can be applied to knits, but the amount of stretch must be considered when choosing the type of facing and stabilizer to use.

I haven't done knits so far, but I have worked with very stretchy fabrics. As an example, I've completed skinny riding pants, which were not much fun to sew (ok... used a non-standard pattern), but sewing the pieces together & finishing the edges really required the differential feed of the overlock, which will manipulate the fabric (push or pull) when sewing it.



Here's the pattern of the riding pants I used:

First draft, based on a regular jeans pattern:



... final construction of single pieces on cardboard:



Although the final garment turned out very well... (both legs are actually the same length, that's just a quick pic I took for this forum. Please note the parallel running seams, which makes use of the coverlock feature of the overlock machine)...



... I had done a big mistake at that time: I didn't wash the fabric before I did the sewing (it was a poly-stretch combination, so I didn't think it would shrink when washing it). After I had completed it and put it into the washing machine, it shrunk about 10%. A skinny riding pant now was too skinny to actually wear it anymore. At some point, I will have to redo it again with pre-washed fabric.

Sorry that I took a detour: So... YES, IMHO the overlock is the way to go if you require a finish that will be a) stretchy b) not require too much time to finish. Personally, I consider overlock seams to look nice (if the overlock is adjusted properly), but that's probably a matter of taste.

Cheers,
Marc

[marc1975]

Front / back parts complete

Hi,

it's been a while since I posted the first pics, as I had to redo the front.
What happened?

Well...I had finished the front part, finished the 2 back parts and finally wanted to sew them together with my overlock. Overlocks are great time savers, as they sew stuff together, finish the edges and cut the fabric at the edge, all in one go.
I had pinned together the front and a back part with needles, and started sewing the side. Perfect. Then I did the same thing with the shoulder seam, but didn't notice that the two fabrics had shifted. As the rubber/PVC isn't that thick, and as my Overlock doesn't have any problems going through thicker fabric at all, I didn't notice that I had accidentally cut through the top applique of the front piece, cutting off fabric as well. I tried to fix it by attaching some additional fabric again, but the result was less than perfect, which I didn't accept. At least the back piece was still usable, I just had to open up the seams again.

That was about a week ago. I redid the whole front piece, cut off the seam allowance by hand, disabled the cutter in my overlock, didn't use pins to put together the two fabrics, but used Wondertape (two-sided adhesive tape) to hold the fabrics together and managed to get all pieces together without any problems.

So.. here are some pics of the pieces, and one pic of me wearing it (although the back-seams will be closed only after the collar has been attached).

Pattern for backside:

Photo of back parts (already attached to front):

First try on:

In my opinion, the fit is much better than the jacket that I had done before. The materials are much more flexible, so they bend where they should (which wasn't the case that much with the jacket). The creases around the armholes should become much less, when the sleeves have been attached, as I didn't cut back that much of the seam allowance around the armholes yet.

I won't be able to continue working on that piece that weekend (although I really wish I could), as I am heading off to my parents who want to celebrate new year...

Cheers,
Marc

[marc1975]

Did the collar piece (two layers of fabric), attached it to the rest of the garment, sewed in an invisible zipper in the back and did the hem finishing. Now only the sleeves are missing. Giggidy-giggidy-giggidy

[LiveinblacK]

Great job, impressed by your work
Keep on trucking!

[tomatous]

amazing.

[marc1975]

Here's the output of this weekend:

Sleeve pattern, as usual cut out from cardboard:

As the sleeve pattern is not absolutely symmetrical, I had to rotate the upper applique a little to the right. I guess Gareth used an absolutely symmetrical pattern for the sleeve cap.

One learning that I had from the first jacket I did was to place the elbow where no applique is present, i.e. where the pieces meet, so the applique doesn't get bent all the time. The current pattern places the elbow exactly at such a junction between pieces.

Right sleeve:

Sewn together:

Next weekend I am going to do the other sleeve. The worst thing is sewing together the pieces with the overlock, as I always fear I will catch an applique. Wish me luck that this doesn't happen with the other sleeve...

Cheers,
Marc

[marc1975]

Finished pics:

Overview: Selfmade Top, selfmade pants, Gareth Pugh F/W 2011 Boots

Front

Side

Back

Spread on floor / front

Spread on floor / back

Zipper detail


Geometric form detail

@Heirloom: I tried to balance the upper and lower half of the sleeves better. The upper half isn't as wide, the lower half doesn't get too narrow, so it looks much better than the v1 jacket.

I will probably do some very basic, simple skinny trousers next that I can wear together with this top instead of the chiffon pants, so you can see the boots better, which are totally hidden in the pics.

How do you like this top ? Better than v1 ?

Cheers,
Marc