My Design Process for Adapting the Fair Fit Dress for Summer Trends
I love analyzing the photo or technical sketch of an intriguing sewing pattern to ready to wear garment that I would like to have in my wardrobe. And when you know how to analyze an existing garment or pattern, you start seeing the current trends and new designs are really just a few key changes and improvements to the pattern and your design can be the latest thing you see on the cool fashion blogs and instagram.
For this summer, I wanted to have some fun with the Fair Fit pattern and make my own adaptations to it to show how I use my design, drafting, and sewing skills to keep it current. In this series of posts, I've included sewing, pattern drafting, and custom design tutorials to illustrate the process I use in my personal practice to adapt my pattern to current trends. In this post and video tutorial, I'll show you my planning process and break down the skills and steps needed to craft your own custom design.
This video breaks down the process I go through to start on a custom design. I show the trends I was considering and how I map out my process with sketching, planning the patterns to draft, and then choosing the type of sewing. This 4 minute video is just a brief preview to help you see the overall project, but from now throughout the summer each week I have prepared for you a post with either a pattern drafting, sewing, or custom design tutorial and video so you can use some of these methods in your own creative sewing practice.
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about sketching!
Lol, I hope you can see from my own sketches that you can just draw out a quick idea, and that you don't have to do full blown fashion illustration to get your ideas down. Just get them down quick! I use a Fashionary, (I'm not an affiliate, that's just what I use) but you can also find croquis on Pinterest if you are looking for ways to just get your ideas down on paper quick.
Lots of times, I hear from sewists that they really don't like to draw, and I hear you. I'm sharing my own lazy sketches to just show that sketching can be like note taking, and is a helpful way to make sure you are including all of your ideas for the garment visually, so you don't miss a step.
Dress Preview
I show the dresses in process in the video, but I'm hoping I'll have some good photos up on the blog as soon as I do an official shoot. I wanted to show you a context, but there are still a few tweaks I'm making and I'll of course share any changes/alterations with each weekly tutorial video and article.
Conclusion
While this is just an introduction to my summer learning series where I'll share skills and methods from my personal design process for Fair Fit garments and collections, in my next post I'll share the first tutorial. It's a pattern drafting post where I'll show you how I draft out the darts from a sewing pattern. Scroll below and you'll find a link to that post in my related articles section.
If you want to create your own custom self sewn clothes and like this way of learning, I want to invite you to check out my signature online courses, the Fair Fit Method. It is a series of online sewing and fashion design courses that will teach you how to create custom clothing for yourself that adapts to your personal shape and style. Using the Fair Fit pattern and the 6 core areas of focus - design, pattern, draping, check fit, sewing, and customization, you can create your own artistically and intentionally designed wardrobe using the step by step videos in each course. To learn more and read the full course descriptions visit the full website here:
My signature online courses, Learn and Make the Fair Fit Skirt and Learn and Make the Fair Fit Dress are now available! Learn fit, and it’s nuances for your body, while engaging with unique and personalized instruction into fashion design, sewing, and customization. Click the button below to learn all about the courses:
