Once again on the pegged skirt
I know I have written quite a lot about my peg skirt experiments, but there is not much information available on the internet about draping a pegged skirt. So if anyone out there wants to try a draped one (as opposed to flat pattern cutting) this post may be useful. I do recognise these posts are not to everyone’s taste, so please feel free to skip it. However I have found this so interesting and I would urge you (if you have a mannequin, or even a friend or relative that you can pin fabric to) to have a go. I am therefore labouring the point a little as some readers are interested in how this works. Despite it’s flaws I enjoy wearing this skirt.
Mary Funt, who is a legend, supported by the magnificent Mrs Mole, suggested that the method I had adopted (draping from the CB or CF) was not going to give me a good result. Here is Mrs M’s comment:
I’m with Mary as I was trying to imagine where the side seams should be and being left with some sort of weird poking out edges, Maybe the fabric is just not the right one to be messing with? Would this work with something more drapey and airy? All those pleats and darts are supposed to help you, not create problems.
Well my first attempt at pleating a full skirt was very hard work, but I liked the skirt. It is different to the average, run-of-the-mill skirt. I liked the fact it didn’t have side seams like the flat pattern cutting methods. Also I wanted a skirt with structure (while I suspect drapey and airy might be nice too!).
I had another go, with calico. Below I explain the process, step by step. It was fun, and it is easy. Doing it this way took no more than 30 minutes.
Here is the introduction to the instructions I was given in class.
A peg skirt is characterised by fullness at the waist line, which tapers to a narrow hem. Shaping at the waist line can be done with tucks, gathers or unpressed pleats. Stiffer fabrics will accentuate the shape. Softer fabrics will fall, creating a more Grecian effect. The peg skirt can be draped with or without a side seam. A side seam is usually used for a more modified silhouette. Draping without a side seam allows for more fullness at the waist and therefore a more extreme shape. We will be draping without a side seam; the straight grain will be placed along the CB.
The steps are (briefly) as follows.
- Pin the CB to the stand at the waist, hip and torso
Pin the selvedge at the CB - Hold the upper edge of calico and wrap to CF (there will be lots of excess at the waistline)
- At the CF pull the top edge up, pivoting the hem in towards the body (the CF will be on the bias). This is the crucial and critical step. You can see the edge of the fabric pinned to Camilla’s upper chest.
Drape to the CF, lift up to shoulder, pin at CF - Pin at CF
- Tie or belt at the waist
Belted (side view) - Adjust fullness as required. Fullness can be at CF or CB only, concentrated at the side, or continue more evenly.
- You can create more of a 3D quality to the drape by pulling down more fabric from above the belt (I have illustrated this below, but my pattern will be less exaggerated).
Pulling additional fabric down to create (exaggerated) 3D look - Mark waistline, pleats/darts/gathers
Mark CF and dot the waist [in this case above the belt] (black), pleat tops (green) and where pleats underfold (red) - Remove from the stand, fold in pleats as intended and then draw in the waist
- Add seam allowance, trim off excess, replace on stand
Cut off excess above waist and to right of CF - Mark the hem from the floor upwards.
Replace on stand and mark hem - You can use your calico as a pattern, or create a paper pattern from this. Be sure to measure the circumference of the hem. The one I have draped here is barely 33″. The red skirt has a circumference at the hem of 35″. You may need to include a split at the back.
- It occurred to me that if I draped this skirt from the CF, instead of the CB, I could then (fabric width permitting) cut the CF on the fold and get back to my one piece skirt, without the attendant problems, reported earlier, about symmetry and fit.
Jean Michel Basquiat Exhibition
I may have mentioned how I am entranced by the art work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. We recently went to Spain to see a major exhibition, Now is the Time.
Jean Michel died prematurely, sadly under the influence of drugs. He was a middle-class, mixed race New Yorker (Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother) who spoke French and Italian as well as English, and in his short life he produced some of the most interesting art I have come across. I find myself completely seduced by the colour, verve, message, and excitement of his work which speak to me at a visceral level. He was working in the 1980s, and is famous partly because he collaborated with Andy Warhol.
This painting, which is seen towards the start of the exhibition is called The Irony of the Negro Policeman. It doesn’t really need explaining. The white wash over the painting is scratched away showing red and blue underneath. Many of his paintings are covered in words, many crossed out to draw attention to them. Some are foreign words, word play, musical words, words linked in the mind of an eclectic reader and traveller, sometimes heightened by drugs.
This is a self-portrait. I love the hair/crown, the black/brown skin, the use of red, white and blue. It is also about the city.
The very strong use of colour, and oil sticks, is so appealing. Another strong, black man. This time a boxer. With a crown, a weapon; dominant; energetic.
Here is another painting of a man’s head, a very beautiful interpretation of black mindsets perhaps. So much pressure, inside and outside; music, violence, industrial landscapes, destruction, private property, fear, anger, beauty, understanding.
Gussets!
What is a gusset?
A gusset is a diamond shaped or triangular piece of fabric that you sew into a close fitting garment in order to ease the movement of the arm or other body part. All these VPO patterns feature a gusset. So if you like vintage patterns, especially those with a kimono sleeve, then at some point or another you are going to have to learn how to put one in.
Brief history of the gusset
Traditional T shaped garments often had gussets at the underarm, shoulder or crotch, in order to shape garments that were made up from straight pieces of wool or linen. You may remember I wrote about my Viking Personal Assistant from Melbourne. She wears traditional men’s wear for fun. These survive today in traditional garments, such as the Romanian blouse.
How to construct a gusset
(adapted from Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing)
There are two types of gusset – one piece or two pieces. The one piece is a square or diamond shape; the two piece is two halves of the square/diamond ie two triangles that join. The two piece is easier to insert as it is joined to the garment, then joined. I will cover the one piece here, and describe putting it into my embroidered 1940s blouse. A different method involves slashing and reinforcing a kimono sleeve, which is probably the method used for the Vogue patterns above. If you are doing that kind of gusset further steps are involved.
- Transfer markings accurately (my pattern had one, two and three notches, and a clearly marked seam line)
Square one-piece gusset, with notches and seam line - Pin the right side of your gusset to the right side of the garment opening, matching all the markings accurately.
- Baste the gusset into the space, making sure it is completely flat with no tucks, or stretching. Rebaste if necessary.
Basted gusset - Garment side up, you are now going to sew two sides of the square, starting from the side seam of the blouse
- With a small stitch (say 1.0) start stitching very slowly. After around 20 stitches increase the stitch to say 2.2. but shorten again when you get to the next corner. At the point pivot, taking one stitch across the point, and continue stitching to the third corner of your square, again shortening the stitch as you approach the point. Leave a long tail on your two threads.
- Repeat starting at the corner you finished on, stitching to the fourth corner of the square, and then back to the starting point, again shortening your stitches at the points. Again leave a long tail.
- Pull the thread ends to the wrong side of the gusset and knot them together.
- Press the seams towards the garment. Top stitch if desired.
- On the outside it looks like a neat triangle.
Underarm gusset
Well, neatish. I will make a better job of it next time!
The pegged skirt is finished, but….
So I finally finished making the draped pegged skirt. I wrote about it here and here.
I struggled with this challenge; partly because I didn’t think this style would do anything for my curves, and partly because I made the skirt from one piece of fabric – with just one seam (at CB). This meant I had a multitude of issues to resolve.
Let’s hear from expert Mary Funt who kindly wrote to me about this issues I was having.
Any reason you are draping this from one length of fabric rather than drape the back and front separately?
You are right that combining the front and back of a pegged skirt will rotate the center back onto bias grain (or even further to the cross grain depending on your pleat depth). This assumes you place the center front on the lengthwise grain. The waistline pleats on a pegged skirt radiate from the side seams. If you eliminate the side seams it will be very difficult to get the pleats to hang correctly. The back pleats also misbehave because you are now trying to make the warp threads, which are woven under greater tension than the crosswise threads, fold softly. To see this better try pleating a length of fabric on the lengthwise grain and then on the crosswise grain. Your crosswise pleats will pouf out more. I’m also not sure how eliminating the side seams will allow you to peg the skirt. At best the back hem will be off grained and there would be some type of sharp angle where the side seam should fall.
Now this is priceless advice and I while I am not sure everyone will understand what we are talking about I have learned my lesson to some extent. I guess that is the point of trying something new – if you experiment with things you have not done before you are more likely to understand why something will not work so well.
However my biggest suprise was that I love the shape! I really like this skirt and think it “has legs” as we say. I was introduced to an American phrase the other day – “this dog hunts”. I have no idea if these phrases are comparable, but what I am trying to say is that, with work, I think I can produce a very nice skirt.
This version, the prototype, has a number of shortcomings. On the plus side the hip level fullness isn’t really a problem, although my bum does, unfortunately, look pretty big in the skirt with its narrow hem. This effect could be corrected with a lighter colour of top, or by wearing a jacket, for example. I think I got the length about right and the 2″ waistband (about double what I would normally wear) is balanced. On the negative side it is crying out for pockets (I did try to drape some but failed). The main weakness is the back where the darts are too “pokey” and the waist band should have been sewn at least half an inch lower – there is buldge of fabric under the belt which should have been eliminated. It was hard to get the symmetry and fit right as the position of the waist band seam was never on the straight grain.
So I will try this again. At our class we were encouraged to drape from the CB to CF creating two pieces joined at the centre lines. Mary’s suggestion is for a side opening, ensuring that both the CF and CB are on the straight grain. I also had some advice from my dear friend Marianna of Sew2Pro. She has a nice tutorial for a adapting your skirt block to a pegged skirt, which is more straightforward, but useful. Her hem retains the same circumference as before whereas this skirt is significantly narrower at the hem – measuring 35″ all round (compared to the 60″ at the waist). I love this skirt partly because it is the opposite of a circular skirt, if you know what I mean.
My next version will be
- cut in two pieces (not sure yet if I will do side seams or CB/CF seams).
- similar dimensions (in terms of length, pleating and depth of waistband)
- transferred to paper so I can get the fit spot on, and then replicate it.
Women in Ties
I don’t watch much TV, but politics in the UK got interesting recently and I have been tuning into Newsnight, and similar programmes. I saw Allegra Stratton, the political editor of Newsnight, wearing a tie. This she did at exactly the point when one of her competitors Robert Peston, the political editor of ITV, rails against them.
Peston claims he wears “an inner cravat” but can’t stand ties. Allegra says she “needed a bit of help tying it”. Really? I wore one for school for years and have no trouble tying one, on myself or on a man.
And although Allegra looked a bit messy with her soft collared shirt, untrimmed hair and bulky tie, I rather liked the look. It matched her “ballsy” personality.
I have a theory – that just as men are giving up on ties (and at my workplace no-tie is the norm, even for suit-and-shirt wearers) women are taking them up. Or at least having a go. This experiment by another competent woman journalist is less successful, but perhaps it has potential – maybe she could have chosen a more fitted waist coat and a smarter shirt to wear with the casual red tie. I don’t think the rolled and tabbed sleeves are quite right either. She looks like she has put on something from the “Oliver!” dressing up box.
Women in the public eye – as models and film stars – seem to have carried off the look superbly. But the message is always interesting. Is the idea to make the woman look more feminine than ever? Are women “sexier” when their sexuality is suppressed and hidden, rather than completely obvious (as Playboy has recently discovered)? Or is this an androgynous look that has universal appeal?
I would like to have a go with a tie myself, but probably won’t. The bow tie appeals more as it remains rather feminine. I like the idea of breaking the rules. I am angry that men can’t wear skirts, or women ties. I am sorry to say that the last time I tried on a tie to go out in (aged 14 or 15) my father said “You look like a Lesbian”. At the time this bothered me, and I took it off.
What about you? Would you wear a tie?
Beautiful Bilbao
Introduction
English people love Spain. Mainly the really hot parts of the South – Andalusia, and the Canary Islands (which are actually closer to southern Morocco) which stay warm through the winter months. I love Spain too, but there are so many other magnificent places to explore. Last weekend we went to the Basque Country, and stayed in Bilbao. This semi-autonomous region has its own language and culture and is one of the richest and most industrialised parts of Spain.
The regeneration of the city and the area owns a great deal to the enormous infrastructure investments that have taken place over the recent period. The most iconic, and transcendent art work, is the Guggenheim. I cannot quite express what an impact this tremendous building has – similar to the Sydney opera house, or perhaps London’s St Paul’s cathedral. It is innovative, enormous, full of hope and energy, and a landmark that can be seen from all over the city. It sits on, and incorporates the river. I absolutely loved the materials it was made from – shiny titanium, stone and glass. There is barely a straight line in the place. The glass panels that form windows and wrap around the lift are layered over each other like fish scales. If you get a chance to go and see it I really urge you to do so. We found a flight and two nights in a good hotel was achievable for less that £300 a person.
At the moment the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition drew us there, but I know that other amazing exhibitions will follow. I would also recommend the Fine Art Museum. The wide selection of Spanish and Basque art here gives a good insight into the culture and history of the country.
Here are a few other things you can enjoy.
Men in Basque Berets (similar to French ones, but bigger)
The food
The views
We also enjoyed a trip on the Funicular railway that turned out to be free of charge – either because it was Sunday, or it was its 100th anniversary. At the top you can see the Guggenheim, and look through a steel fingerprint. As a region that owes its wealth to steel there are many steel monuments – a very interesting one by Richard Serra inside the Fish gallery at the Guggenheim.
Also you can buy fabric. I will cover this in a future post. I loved the hot weather (up to 33 degrees, in October!), the very friendly and chatty locals and the fact that it is only 90 minutes from London. Go if you can.
Rainshore Project Update 0.3
I mentioned that we were planning to name our new home Rainshore, and one reader mentioned having a name for a house is very uncommon in the US. I have nothing to report on the build at the moment as the drawings are now with the builder for costing and the planning department.
In the meantime I thought you might be interested in a little bit of family history.
I managed to get a few photographs of the original Rainshore. It was built by my Grandpa in 1929 and we spent lots of time there as children. It had some really nice features, and it seemed very grand and magical. These pictures were taken after my aunt Beryl died at the age of 90. She had lived there for around 80 years! Nothing much was changed.
The front door (first left picture, painted white) was never used. We always went in through the back door, which was effectively next door to the outside toilet. If you have never had the pleasure of sitting on a freezing loo seat, in winter, and then having the advantage of “hard” toilet paper then you are a youngster, and very lucky.
Entering the back door, you stepped into a large hallway with a parquet floor. It had a nice carpet and matching runners on the stairs. It was very woody and old fashioned. Half way up the staircase was a large stained glass window (second picture). There was a sitting room that was just about never used, and the same with the dining room – we went in there, once a year, for Christmas lunch. Most food was eaten in the breakfast room which used to have a large pine table (third picture). Table tennis was sometimes played on it. Grandma cooked everything in the Aga. There was a big wing chair in the corner by the left hand window and she used to sit there as it was one of the few warm places in the house. The Aga was powered by coal. The big chest of drawers and cupboards had crockery in, and in the drawers were recycled items like wrapping paper and string from parcels. My Auntie was known for her “thriftiness”. She cut bread very thin and scraped butter on it. In one of the drawers she kept things for visiting nieces and nephews – glue, coloured paper, scraps of fabric and wool. She and her mother were both keen knitters and dressmakers.
I remember having baths there when we stayed – Auntie Beryl put in just an inch or two of warm water. The room itself was freezing cold as its only source of heating was towel rail that was never on (fourth picture). In fact apart from the Aga and the fire in the “drawing room” there was no heating. The sheets felt so cold when you got into bed. The bedding was heavy blankets and eiderdowns, and a hot water bottle if was winter. The bathroom tiling is rather nice and reminds me of public baths from the 1930s. Just next door to the bathroom was a lovely linen cupboard – all built-in – that I would love to have in our new house. Maybe…
The house was set in its own grounds with a vegetable garden (we used to pick peapods and eat most of them raw), a tennis court and lots of places to run around and hide in. I found two photographs from my Mother’s album. One of Rainshore from the side, and the other of my Uncle Teddy (who was married to Trixie, one of my father’s sisters) and his three children, my cousins Clive, David and Jane, standing outside the unused front door of Rainshore.
I often try to remember the houses I lived or stayed in when I was young. I would love to revisit them in reality. But now I just have to visit them in my imagination.
How to make a Pegged skirt (Draping method)
Last week I wrote about how I had draped a pegged skirt on the stand at my Morley evening class. After three hours in the studio I came home with an understanding of what a pegged skirt is, but I wasn’t able to make up what I had already prepared.
This post continues the story of a very lively red fabric versus a determined woman, armed with big pins and scissors. That makes it sound exciting. Actually it is a fairly technical post about symmetry and fit.
Symmetry
As you know one of the great advantages of flat pattern cutting (using a paper pattern) is that, as long as you cut, mark and sew fairly accurately, you tend to get a nice, even, balanced, symmetrical look. Conversely of the most frustrating things about the draping process in the round, is getting a symmetrical garment. Of course I tried. I measured, marked and “eye balled”; I held my set square against the pleated, bulky vertical garment, but I was completely floored by my opinionated fabric and the skirt that fought back. Maybe I should have gone for a deliberately asymmetric design (not an accidentally asymmetric one).
Fit
Also the skirt was too big. Apart from the symmetry challenge, I also needed to get the size right, and I wanted the pleats to work OK on my figure (rather than the shape of the stand at my evening class. I haven’t gone on about it but she looks like she was on the Titanic). I hoped that by settling the design of the back first I could be certain how much fabric I had to play with. Also because I was draping the whole skirt rather than half as is usual, I just couldn’t control all the cloth, unless I fixed it at certain points. So I pulled out the pleats I had painstakingly stitched last week, and inserted a CB zip on the bias, as I had marked it. I now had a definite CB seam and marked CF. I got out my biggest, meanest pins (seen in the photo below) and I anchored the angry red object to Camilla.
By having the CF and CB sorted and attached to my stand at the right place I felt I now had a chance to create the skirt I wanted.
This picture is nice as you can see what happens to the hip line (yellow). Ignore the blue (left over from my first attempt). The yellow thread at the top left shows what happened to the waist line at the CB.
Style
In this first iteration (above) I had a nice, angular pleat across the derriere. On the stand it looks rather fetching. But when I tacked all the pleats down and tried it on it didn’t work so well. The springy fabric jutted out across the fullest part. Bearing in mind Mrs Mole’s injunction against any drapes that make “your hips/butt look enormous”, I shied away and went for a couple of darts. Yes, I am a coward, and one day I will try something more adventurous, but as I mentioned before I want wearable and relatively flattering. This skirt is big, red and does its best to make the “hips/butt” look somewhat prominent.
Method
Once I had the zip in place I laid out the skirt on my ironing board. At the far end of the board is the zip and the brown selvedge, basically showing the CB is on the bias grain. You can see the CF across the bottom on the photograph and the hipline as a long yellow stitch. The while thread tacking is where the waist line is after the skirt has been draped. The circumference of the waist is currently 60 inches, or 30″ on the folded fabric. The darts and pleats had to reduce the 30 inches to about 14″ (to fit my 27″ waist with an inch of ease). I trace tacked the side seam too, half way between the front and back. To do this I went down from the 15″ point to half way across the hem (the hem is much narrower than the waist).
Then I set to work on the doubled fabric, marking the darts and pleats through the two layers, using tailors tacks, and then I separated the two layers, cut open the tacks and pinned the darts and pleats closed.
Style
A pegged skirt is wide at the hips, narrow at the hem, and flatters tall women with small hips and slim legs. As I am making this skirt for me (with fuller “hips/butt”) I need to make a very careful decision depth of the waist band and the length of the skirt. Any advice?
Thinking about SWAP 2016 0.1
In case you don’t know Sewing with a Plan (SWAP) is an annual sewing challenge put on by Artisans’ Square. Right now members are discussing what they would like the contest to be focused on this year. If you have thought about joining in, now is the time to start thinking about it. It is free to participate, although the site needs donations to keep running, so if you do join in, please contribute too.
The basic idea is to design a small collection for yourself (or perhaps someone you love) during November and December and to make up the outfits over the next four months (January to April). There is voting on the winners at the end, but it is a gentle competition with no prizes.
I have done the challenge for the last two years, and I got so much out of it. I really slowed down and thought hard about what I was making. I made clothes that worked together. I really enjoyed making and wearing them, and still wear my SWAP outfits regularly, and with pride. I was so pleased that two of my blog friends – Stephanie and Karine – joined in last year. I hope this year quite a few more might take part – a few of you have said you might (you know who you are!)
Here is what I am thinking.
My last two SWAP collections were really autumn/winter affairs, even though the contest ends in May and that is when the weather starts to improve.
This year I am going to prepare for summer 2016 with my SWAP. I love sweet peas – these are from my Mother’s garden.
The most delightful of all summer flowers with their gorgeous scent and wonderful array of colours makes them my all time favourite flower. The wild version is more robust, colourful and sadly lacking in scent. Although I am attracted the bright, showiness of the wild version I think I want to include a set of clothes in my wardrobe that are more subtle, lighter. This year I want a more gentle, softer SWAP – a real feeling of English summer time.
My palette will include
- soft pink
- bright pink
- deep purple
- light purple
- deep green
I am including the two containers I have used too, as inspiration. The silver pottinger was given as a wedding presen to Nick and I, and the small white paper bag vase I bought for my mother years ago.
These two containers enable me to include
- silver
- white
I am going to use lightweight fabrics, some of them translucent
- cotton lawn
- silk organza
- chiffon
- very lightweight linen
- crisper cottons
- embossed metallics or maybe engraved silver buttons
- crumpled fabric
- pinked or rick rac edges
After my embroidery experiments I may include sweet peas somewhere. Here is a nice old embroidery pattern generously shared by QisforQulitler.com.
It seems pretty random at the moment. I have no idea where this will take me. I associate sweet peas so much with scent as well as texture and colour.
Draping on the stand 0.9 – a Pegged Skirt
My draping on the stand adventure continued with the requirement to create a pegged skirt.
This design was very popular in the 1950s, and then in the 1980s. Here are a few pictures.
It is a particular look. The straight grain is pulled upwards to create width at the waist and a narrowing at the hem. Then the excess fabric at the waist is draped or folded to give fullness at the hip. It can be relatively subtle, just looking like a pleated straight skirt, or fairly exaggerated and design-y.
In style terms this skirt is best for women with a straight body shape and slim legs. The shape of the skirt – with width at the hips and a narrow hem is not the most flattering for women with an hourglass shape (ie me). However I thought I would give it a go and let you be the judge of whether or not this style can be worn by curved figures.
I decided to drape this skirt in the fashion fabric, rather than calico. I am not sure I would do that again for such a complicated design. I really struggled to get this to work and would have liked to use the model in calico-transfer to paper-true the pattern-choose suitable fabric-cut out and make up. I thought doing this skirt in fabric would be a bit more challenging and it was.
I followed the instructions.
- Ensure fabric is prepared in terms of straight edges and squared grain
- mark the CB waist (just the first few inches) and the hip (all the way around) with basting threads so you can see what is happening.
- start draping at the CB, and then lift up the fabric at a sharp angle so that the CF is now on the bias
- put a tape around the waist
- for extra fullness pull the fabric down beneath the tape
- when you are pleased with the design, mark the waist, gathers/pleats etc.
- remove from the stand and make up the skirt
Here are a couple of photographs from the lecture. I am sorry the second one is rather dark.
I had brought in about 1.4 metres of a fairly firm wool with some polyester, which contains elastane. I figured if the skirt was very slim around the leg area I could do with a little stride room. Lynda suggested that I start my draping at the CF so I trace tacked the CF, hip and front waist on the fabric with bright yellow thread before I started.
I then spent a couple of hours, pulling, folding, and working. My first efforts had the CB on an angle but not extreme enough to create the kind of fullness I was seeking. It just looked like a normal pleated skirt. So Lynda helped me redrape the back so that the CB was more or less on the true bias. This gave my skirt the more exaggerated, structural look I was seeking. And here is my skirt (photographed (slightly crumpled) at home the next morning).
I found this a difficult project to get my head around, and I am glad I persevered. I spent another evening “faffing” around with this skirt, and I will report on progress very soon. I must rush as I am hoping to wear this skirt on Monday.
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