multipanel pattern drafting

There have been a lot of requests on the boards lately on how to draw a multipanel skirt pattern. I have taken the liberty of showing the basic recipe that I use to draw my panels. It is available as a pdf-document for the price of $1 US (payable through paypal). This is not a ready-to-use pattern - It is a method I use to draw my own patterns. In the example I show a 4-panel being drawn, but this concept can apply to any number of panels!

If you are interested in the pdf, please send me an email and I will contact you.

For Nadine

To be ready for the WIDA championships in March...

Danielle's dress is ready!

Here is just a quick picture taken of the finished dress right before it was shipped off to the USA.
A little info:
The base fabrics is a black swirl fabric is a mesh overlay with gold sequins. Underneath the black overlay is a standard black satin.
The purple brocade is used for the panels and back skirt. The lining of the dress is holographic gold shimmer lame. All these were bought in England, from whitelodgefabric.com as is the sequined lace for the sleeves.The gold foil with dots for the applique came from a local dutch fabric market.
The inside of the sleeves was lined with a cream satin to give some support to the sleeves and balance the color of the yellow/gold lace.
The panels are done in a car-wash-hem style.

Happy Holidays!

Lowland Design wishes You

Congratulations!!

Congratulations for Ashley who came third in the Oireachtas!



And second in her solo results!

A Rose is a rose is a rose...

Ashley's dress is coming along nicely. Her base fabric is a chocolate brown fabric with roses woven into it. Since Ashley loved roses, it was not hard to imagine what her dress was going to be like :-) She has spent the last year designing it and now it is finally being made...

Her top panels are shown below. The "pleat" panels will have pink satin with a lace overlay and a lovely pink organza ruffle.

Ready!

Susie's dress is finished just in time. She will come and pick it up tomorrow.
I love the green colors on this dress. It is so bright and fresh together! The cape is a sequinned tye-dye chiffon with 2 shades of green on it. You cannot really see the tye-dye pattern in the picture due to the flash, but it has more contrast with the base fabric in real life.

Susie's dress

Susie is going to the Oireachtas in Berlin and needs a new dress as her old one is sold! I am furiously working to meet the deadline...
Her teacher said that after the black and pink dress, she might need a different color. The green is very bright and cheerful. The base fabric has nice embroidered spirals and a slight two-tone effect.

Her panels (petal style) have been embroidered, stiffened and lined and are ready to receive the final satinstitching around the shaped edges. Then I can sew these panels together halfway and start on the back sections of the skirt.


**Please note that I am fully booked until january 2008 and can only accept new orders for delivery in february 2008**

How-to satinstitch straight

Sometimes people ask on the web how they can transfer their designs onto the fabric of the dress. There are many ways to do this of course, and here I show one: the paper tissue method.

This method is particularly good when you have to embroider onto fabric when you have no edges of the applique to follow. In this example I need to do straight lines of satinstitching onto a pink area.


Firstly I have the area drawn out onto tissue paper and have marked all the stitching lines. The paper is then pinned onto the fabric and I stitch the outline with a large running stitch to hold it in place.
When the paper is in place I stitch out the lines I need to embroider and then I remove the paper. The stitchlines are now marked clearly (if you use a contrasting thread of course :-)



Now it is time to satinstitch the marked lines... perfectly straight!

For Sale...Noreen's dress.

This lovely warm cerise dress is now for sale. The dress was made in 2005. The base is a metallic cotton with a red metallic warp and cobalt blue weft, creating a deep cerise that changes slightly in tone as it reflects the light. Applique is done in holographic glittersquare, yellow satin and emerald metallic cotton. The lining is silver satin.
The design is bright with nice contrasts that show up well on the stage. It would be very nice as a first solo dress for prizewinner/intermediate.





The dress is very well cared for and in good shape. No signs of wear, no make-up and no odor! The bodice is fully lined in cotton and dress shields have always been worn woth the dress. Owner is asking 400 euro plus shipping from the Netherlands.

This dress needs to be sold! REDUCED to 210 GBP or best offer!!!
Measurements (taken from the dress):

Chest 87 cm
Waist 78 cm
Collarbone to waist 34 cm
Skirt 41 cm
Full dress length 75 cm
Sleeve 54 cm
Back neck bone to waist 41 cm
Shoulder to shoulder across the back 35 cm
chest front (armpit to armpit) 44 cm
neck to shouldercap 12 cm

Please email for more information; or leave a comment at this post.