Janet and Miriam homework July 22, 2016

I cannot believe the skirts these ladies have been making!  They fit like a glove and look absolutely wonderful on the body!  The best part is there are very few adjustments to be made on the drafts.  Miss Miriam who swore she never wears skirts has admitted she has not taken the bias skirt off since making it!  I guess it's time to make another and change style a bit LOL!!  Miss Janet has been creating skirts like no one else, they hang perfectly straight at the seams, they fit like a glove especially after her personal adjustments are incorporated into the draft, and they are not many the main thing is to learn to recognize the issues and how to address them. 
Next class we are going to start on the bodice front and back, you will be doing a storyboard version of the draft so please cut at least 6 pieces of paper each that are at least 60 cm long, it can be narrow paper, the whole point is to have a step by step guide to refer to when working on your own so there will be no question as to how you got from point A to point B.  I gave you a brief demo on the basic block just so you can see where you are going and it won't be quite so foreign to you when we start next week, your brain will have had a chance to process the information and you will be better prepared to understand it.
Homework this week is to play around...... with volants that is!  Do the spiral volants using different measurements, practice some more with the circle and semi-circle volants by making them longer on one side than the other.  This is a great exercise in learning the properties of different fabrics just to compare how the bias stretches around the top/waistline and how it hangs, below are a few questions to ask yourself when making a circle/semi-circle skirt

• How much of a stretch is there on certain fabrics?
• Are all fabrics the same?
  
• Does the weight of the fabric make a difference in how far the bias drops when hanging?
• How does the skirt hug the body when worn? 
• What is the difference between the bias and straight grain when the skirt hangs?
• How can the hem be made to hang parallel to the floor? 
• How can one make the drape start lower than the top?  I showed this on Skype and it’s really a simple solution that is very effective! 
  
• I would like for you to jot down the answers to these questions and have them on hand for the next class
  

have a great week!