Drafting a Peg-Top Waist Skirt

Posted on Apr 28, 2013 | Comments Off on Drafting a Peg-Top Waist Skirt

My Wisteria in full bloom

We are having such beautiful weather and to think that it is Oregon, and in April!  I have had more energy in the last 3 days than I feel I’ve had in the last 3 months.  I guess I’ve got the “spring fever”.

So while cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning…

I have been thinking about a dress I am going to make, a summer dress in yellow and white.  Part of my inspiration came from the T.V. show “Revenge”.  Yes…I am watching it but I blame it on Netflix.  Believe it or not, I don’t watch television.  I do however watch my “talking books” on Netflix but it really stinks when they put the first season of something on it; you watch it, and then you’re hooked and have to continue watching it on T.V.  or Comcast On-Demand,  both with all those obnoxious irritating crappy advertisements… uh-oh, rant coming on, shut it down- shut it down!  Ahem…

Anyways, there were several dresses that the leading actress, Emily VanCamp, wore that caught my eye.  One of course was a yellow and white one, and the other was what might have been a white brocade but it was the skirt of that dress that grabbed my attention.  Instead of the standard darts that start at the waist and go straight down, these were diagonal.  I thought, okay, that would be easy enough — I’ll just use my skirt pattern that fits me perfectly and fold the darts diagonally.  But I was so wrong!  Mind you I had already drawn out my vision on a croquis…

and have been mulling it around in my head, trying to figure it all out.  It was in one of those moments when my brain was fully functioning properly  that I remembered a book I have.  The author is Adele P. Margolis and the book is titled “How to Design Your Own Dress Patterns”.

The diagonal darts that I needed to create she terms in the book as  a “peg top” skirt with actual instructions for drafting it.  What a score!

I was so excited that I

stopped breathing for several

seconds…

This was so big that it

demanded a glass of wine with

a toast!

So now that I am back on my feet, I thought I would share with you how it’s done.   There are 12 steps to drafting the peg-top skirt and hopefully with pictures, some from Adele Margolis’s wonderful book, it will be easy for you to follow.  Here goes…

DRAFTING A PEG TOP WAIST SKIRT in 12 EASY STEPS

** Please note that my pictures and the book illustrations are opposite views.  I did this intentionally but realized half-way through that it would be conflicting for this “how to” but I had already spent a bit of time with the drafting and pictures so decided to keep my dingy sailing in the same direction!

This is the whole sha-bang of illustrations for the peg-top skirt, all on one page.  I have re-illustrated them individually in the following steps to make it easier to understand.   Hopefully you will be inspired to go hunting for this little treasure to add to your collection if you don’t already have it.  It certainly has saved my butt!

Step 1:

You start with a skirt front block that fits you nicely  but because you’ll be cutting it up, you will likely want to trace one from your original.  I traced around my original skirt block onto a  piece of art paper and then drew in the dart and grain line.  Keep it simple and do what works best for you.

Step 2:

Draw a line from the bottom corner of the side seam to the dart point.  Then label these B and A respectively.  (See above and below)

Step 3:

Cut out the original dart at the top of the waist.  There is no picture for this because for some reason I forgot to take one.  (It was an awe crap moment when I realized this)

Step 4:

Now you are going to slash the line you drew from Point B  to Point A but leave just a smidgeon of paper at Point A so the 2 sections are still connected.   Then pivot or shift Point B, closing up the dart at the waist; then tape in place.  Label the hem line points B (already there) and B1.

Step 5:

You will need to draw “style lines”  as shown and label them X and Y

This is a bit tricky.  There is no precise placement for these lines and no specific lengths.  It is entirely up to the designer.  I worked from the sample that is shown in the book  and drew my lines 4 and 6 inches in length.

Step 6:

Next, connect each of these lines to A.

Step 7:

Label these sections 1, 2 and 3.  Then cut them completely apart from one another.  Across from A, you will want to mark A1 though not shown in the photo below.

The next steps I found to be easier to manage by placing my 3 sections on another sheet of paper.  There were no instructions given to do this and I struggled for a bit until I got it sorted out.

Step 8:

You start with placing sections 1 and 3 with the bottom points B and B1 touching and positioning A and A1 two inches apart.  Below is how they look before I taped them on my additional sheet of paper.

Then after…

Step 9:

Place Section 2 between 1 and 3 so that the darts will be equal on each side at the waist line with the point touching midway between A and A1.

I don’t have a picture for the top of section2 between 1 and 3 so refer to the book illustration.  It will look wonky but as long as the tip is at the mid-way point of A and A1 and you maintain an equal width for each side of Section 2, you will be fine. 

Step 10:

Find the center points between C and C1 and D and D1.  Nothing beats a good eraser when you can’t make up your mind!

Step 11:

Draw in the 2 new darts.  The dart legs need to be of equal length when measuring from the midway points  at C and C1, and D and D1 to ZY and XW respectively.

Dart ZCY

and Dart XDW

Step 12:

Fold the new darts to the center and draw in the waist line.  Now finish up by tracing your draft onto pattern paper and be proud.  You did it!  Of course you still need to draft a skirt back or obtain one that matches this one at the side seams and supplies the remainder of the waist measurement that is needed.  The waist and sweep of the hem line should remain intact when doing this peg top style.  Only the hip fullness is affected.  It does not change, just relocates!

This is mine finished.  I didn’t create little tabs extruding from the center part of the darts because I wanted them to be even with the waist line when they were folded.  Right or wrong, it’s what I wanted and besides, I’ve always liked living on the edge!

In the near future you’ll be seeing that yellow and white dress I’ve been talking about, with this peg top skirt sewn into it of course.  I am really excited about it because I have truly created my own dress pattern this time around.   The bodice I designed off of my own drafted bodice block; then I did style changes giving it french darts, a sweetheart neck line and a scooped low back.   I hope I haven’t shot myself in the foot by announcing this!  Ehh, what’s life without a bit of adventure right? Stay tuned!  Now it’s time to go enjoy the rest of my day with no cleaning!

Salut!  Jessica

Betsey Johnson Polka Dots

Posted on Apr 21, 2013 | 0 comments

Yes, this is Betsey Johnson polka dot fabric!  Lady Luck was on my side when I saw it available at Gorgeous Fabrics.  I snagged 2 yards, then later thought about getting some more, but alas…it was all gone!  It is Sateen and has a slight stretch to it; definitely has the feel of bottom weight fabric but perfect for what I had in mind.  I washed it on the gentle cycle in my washing machine, bypassed the dryer and hung it to dry instead.

Some of you might say, “who the heck is Betsey Johnson?”  Well, she is an American clothing designer who loves color, adores costumes and likes to design fashions that are playful, whimsical and edgy.  I bet she would be a lot of fun and I would so love to meet her!  So when I saw this fabric with the big polka-dots, I caved!

My original plan for this fabric was to make a dress from the Simplicity 1797 pattern.  However… crap happened!  There is really no other way to say it and that was the nice way.  If you are one of my regular readers, then you know the story.  If you are new here, it had nothing to do with the Simplicity pattern but the fabric I was practicing with before I started cutting pattern pieces out of my polka dot fabric.  The pattern review for Simplicity 1797 tells all!

My new game plan was to draft my own dress.  I wanted to make a skirt with an empire waist and it would have a whole lot of flare!  I envisioned the bodice as sleeveless with a criss-cross front.  Oh yeah – I thought I was brilliant until it was time to start drafting.  I begin to lose my courage and started the transformation into a big chicken!

I deduced that maybe I needed to stimulate my imagination so for ideas I went rummaging through my patterns.  It was sort of like panning for gold; a lot of “not what I wanted”.  Then all of a sudden, there it was, the gold nugget, Simplicity 3783.  What I saw sparkling was the bodice…it was exactly what I saw in my mind.  The skirt I was not sure about though I loved the bubble hem idea.  I had time before I had to make up my mind so I swept the skirt business aside, eager to check out the bodice scene.

I can’t remember when I bought it but it is old enough that if you search Simplicity’s website, you can’t find it, not even in the out-of-print section.

I selected the bodice pieces of tissue from the pattern envelope and began.  Here it is… my muslin.  I loved the fit…it was perfect!

Elizabeth, my dressform, is probably a little embarrassed by the wrinkles that you can see on the muslin so I should apologize.  Not sure when it happened, but I did iron it at some point! 🙂

Now it was time to figure out what to do about a skirt.  The bottom of the skirt pattern seemed wide enough to do a subtle bubble hem (though I wanted more than subtle) but it was the darts that ran from the top of the skirt to down below the waistline that were troubling me.  Not to mention I wasn’t sure I wanted all that fabric folded around me and wasting those beautiful polka dots!  That was when Simplicity 3783 was no more but my courage had grown and drafting a skirt didn’t seem to be as scary a business.  I had a skirt pattern I drafted last year that I used to make several other dresses and it had an empire waist so I dug it out.   I know it’s a crummy picture, but it’s hard photographing tracing cloth.

I fit me perfectly, a front and a back, each side with two darts.  I wanted fullness, not as much as a circle skirt, but just lots of flare at the bottom.  I knew that I couldn’t get the flare I wanted with only a front and back piece;  I was going to have to split them into a center front and side front, and center back and side back.  After having a mental struggle with whether I was on the right track or not, I gave in to my creative side and dug out my pattern tracing paper, my mechanical pencil and my Dritz cardboard cutting board with the quarter circle lines on it.

The drafting commenced for what seemed like hours and then it was time to cut my new skirt pieces out.  Once again the wave of uncertainty hit me!   I hate it when that happens!  Everything looked good; all the sides that were to be seams were of equal length.  The waist matched the bodice…but I needed some support so back to my pattern stash I went.  It was the Butterick 5603 pattern that slapped me in the face! The skirt was exactly what I wanted.

I pulled out the tissue pieces and compared them to my drafted pieces.  I was close!  Several of my curves needed a little correction, but outside of this, I was good to go!

With the pattern/designing war over, I went to work cutting out the pieces from my beloved polka dot fabric.  Sewing the dress together was like a fantastic dream!  I loved the way the fabric handled and it all went so smoothly.  I made the bodice first.

As you may note, the bodice is already attached to the skirt in the following pictures.  I forgot to take pictures during the process.  I also forgot to eat that day –I’m sorry but I get so involved!

Then it was on to the skirt.  I serged all the edges before I sewed the seams.

I made a lining.  I used the one from Simplicity 3783,  It was nothing more than a front with 4 darts and 2 pieces for the back, each with 2 darts.   I serged all the edges on these too before sewing it together, then I machine sewed a 5/8 inch hem in it.  Next, I basted it to the skirt, wrong sides together.  I didn’t sew the back seam of the skirt so basting in the lining was easy.  I usually do it this way anyway because I find it easier to put the zipper in first, THEN sew in the back seam.

Now with the skirt lining installed, I was ready to attach it and it’s mate the skirt to the bodice.  It went very smoothly.  I was definitely needing a confidence boost and this was it!  Now, all that was left was to set in the invisible zipper, sew the back seam and turn under and hand sew the edges of the lining.  This was a little tricky on the front of the bodice where the two sides crossed.  I had to get a little creative but still managed a nice finish.

All that was left was to hem it and Shabam!

Check out the earrings if you can see them.  They are my daughter’s…red guitars!  How awesome is that!

So there you have it.  My creation with a little help from B & S!  (That doesn’t sound right does it?)  I call it my Jessica Betsey dress.  I love this style so much, especially because while being somewhat form fitting, it is oh so comfortable.  So comfortable that I made a second one, a “little white dress”.  The fabric has pretty embroidered flowers and I used a bit of pink chiffon I had on hand.

I did change it up a bit though.  A pink band of chiffon sewn between the bodice and skirt.

And a v-neck in the back.

and the full deal…

I have several occasions in mind for wearing my dresses and I can’t wait.  Coco Chanel once said, “Dress women in black or white at a ball.   They will catch the eye”.  I don’t know about catching the eye, but I certainly will feel like I’m going to a ball.  I can’t wait!

Salut!  Jessica