developing progress

Once getting my story and muse I was then able to begin my toile development.

Firstly I started off with creating a few drawings of my design, this progress started off rather slow as I was struggling to get inspiration and ideas from my head. However, after a little while and doing some deeper research I was able to build a portfolio of potential designs in which I could develop into my toile.

I decided to create a toile that would have a wrap dress on the upper half with organza flowing balloon arms. The lower half would be a rouched skirt that would be a black cotton with pattern.

Creating my upper half pattern pieces were very simple, meaning I was able to create first attempts to see what it would look like on the mannequin.

Even though I loved the upper half, once starting the lower half, I noticed that the skirt did not match the upper half in person. This meant I was going to have to change my design slightly. Changing the skirt was quite tricky for me as I was struggling on what to do. Because of this I decided to carry on with the upper half first to get that finished.

Firstly, I started off with sewing the organza black fabric sleeves together with a ribbon attached to each one, creating the balloon effect. Once I had done this I attached the sleeves to the upper bodice creating the first layer. After this I then started to create the under layer which was the white high neck ribbed top.

Completing the upper half of my design meant I was back to creating my skirt. After a long time of playing around with the fabric I was able to create an A-line skirt. I decided to keep the skirt straight and simple as Renli’s skirts are all simple, but have some sort of textured fabric on top to make It stand out.

Once sewing the skirt onto the bodice, I was then able to play around with frills that I had created to put onto the skirt.

As you can see from the images, the frills had been placed in different places. I didn’t like how the frills looked in the first image, so I decided to keep them level in one place instead, shown in the second image.