Oh where, oh where have the dressmakers gone....

Posted by Samatha Hill -- take out TRASH on September 3, 2009, 11:10 am

(Oh, it's SOOO nice to be talking to people from my era! I am
technically old enough to be the mother of everybody in my office -- the
next oldest was born during my junior year of high school -- and I get
so tired of having to explain cultural references)

I am so tired of looking for someone to help me with the parts of
creating garments that I don't have the large blocks of
time-plus-concentration for (right now it's getting a pattern from a
perfectly-fitting RTW garment) and only finding people who expect to
learn on my dime, and the latest is someone who lives an hour and a half
away and suggested that I conduct business by email, send her the
garment I want cloned, realize that she charges a lot and it may not be
cost-effective to have a pattern cloned from a garment unless it's
something I want to make multiple garments of (well, duh...), and have
her mail the cloned pattern back. Uh, I don't think so. My dear lady,
your description of your experience sounds good, but my money doesn't
grow on trees anywhere and I want to see samples of your work that back
up your claims. Besides, (and this part I told her), if I was going to
do something online I wouldn't have gone to Craigslist, where the motto
is, "pay cash, meet in person" to ask for help.

My neighbor does alterations for an upscale dry cleaner in an upscale
city nearby (and has the prices to match) but doesn't create patterns
from garments, as she is just an alterations person -- and an excellent
one at that. I don't think that any dry cleaner's is going to have
someone who can do what I want. And the only custom sewists I see are
ones who want to make wedding gowns.

I have no idea where to look for an experienced person to take a
relatively basic item of clothing and copy a pattern from, and I really
don't think I would want to do this by email. Anybody have any ideas of
where to look (besides the PACC referral list -- it appears that the
people in my area who I used to see on that list have vanished off the
face of the earth). Or should I call up one of these wedding gown
designers and risk getting laughed at for merely wanting them to help me
make correctly fitting clothing to wear to work to see if they will
clone a princess-line dress that fits me better than I could have ever
dreamed that RTW would (and I can do the few alterations the pattern
needs for it to fit me absolutely perfectly) as opposed to just spending
$50 to buy another one and try to cut it apart and create pattern pieces
and the one pair of gauchos that actually fits my
thick-from-front-to-back bod like regular trousers that I have hunted
from 3-6 months after I bought them and are not sold anywhere any more?

*discouraged sigh*

Posted by Emily Bengston on September 3, 2009, 2:25 pm

Samantha, No, I would not do anything like this by e-mail or regular mail
with anybody, especially, a person I don't know.

If the dress is a simple design, why not carefully rip it apart and use
tissue paper to cut a pattern, making certain to mark all pieces, so there
will be no problem in putting the new dress together again.

There are several books on making patterns from ready-made clothes that can
be quite helpful; I'm sorry I can't tell you any titles at the moment, but
do a search on Google for the subject.

I know Nancy Zieman has a book & DVD out that is on pattern fitting; I have
not seen the DVD yet, so don't know if it discusses this particular subject
or not.

Good luck with your project.

Emily

Posted by Samatha Hill -- take out TRASH on September 3, 2009, 10:19 pm

Emily Bengston wrote:
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And especially someone who I don't know who wants me to send the garment
I wanted cloned to them for them to do before discussing rates, etc.

show/hide quoted text

I have the skills to do this. In fact, when I was job-hunting, I
combined two garments plus one pattern to create a dress to wear as an
interview outfit. But with a full-time job plus a part-time job, I
don't have the time to do it right now. I also don't have a serger to
finish the seam edges when I sew the dress/slacks back together again,
and I have never sewn a 3/8-inch seam in my life.

Posted by Bobbie Sews More on September 3, 2009, 10:37 pm

You could always use the zig-zag to overcast the seam edges. As far as a
3/8" seam, just put some masking tape down and mark off a 3/8 " seam. You
can also use post it notes to use as a seam guide. HTH
Barbara in SC

Posted by Samatha Hill -- take out TRASH on September 4, 2009, 12:37 am

Bobbie Sews More wrote:
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What I need to learn is how to keep my presser foot from eating the
fabric if I try to sew closer than a half-inch from the edge of the
fabric. That and learning how to sew knits without the seam totally
deforming the fabric are my two sewing bugaboos at this point.

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