Red Bow Shirt

So I guess this shirt is "draped." I made this before I knew of the technique. I basically made it by cutting out a rectangle, gathered one side, and I made a rectangle for the bow. This is how I originally started making clothes. I would either get a store-bought shirt, place the shirt on top of the fabric, and cut the fabric around the shirt, then sew it together!

Well t-shirts are simple anyway. I really don't understand it when people say "oh, the cut of this t-shirt is so great! It fits me well." Of course it will fit you well! It's made out of knit jersey fabric, which stretches to hug your curves and sticks to your hollows. The only revolutionary thing that anyone can do to a t-shirt is to cut it a little in at the waist to fit a woman's body better. Obviously I'm not a big fan of t-shirts, but they're great in that they're comfortable and fit anyone!

This red shirt basically represents the beginnings of clothing construction for me. I cut a rectangle, and depending on the affect I want, I cut out of the rectangle. For example, if I want a shirt to fit at the waist, I cut out the sides and maybe darts to bring the rectangle inward.

Anyway, It's hard to explain how I learned how to make clothes unless I demonstrate it. I was never a big fan of patterns, although I do recognize that I can learn a lot from them, I just can't restrict myself that way. I loathe all the instructions, the strict step-by-step process. My goal this summer was to at least make one thing with a pattern. When I was in Santa Cruz, I went to this free garage sale, and the girl had patterns from her grandmother. They were from the 50's and 60's! I love old fashioned things, so I decided to try to make a shirt. But it didn't turn out right and so I gave up.

Oh well. At least now I have a dress form, which I love! I had to get a petite size because all the boobs on the normal sized mannequins are too big for me, and the petite size covered all my measurements, except that the torso length is shorter than mine. I discovered that I can pull her torso out of her hips to lengthen her body (it was such a strange thing to do to a body replica) but then it left this indent all around her waist area. Oh well! I've made two dresses on it so far, and they fit me perfectly! Although I'm going to have to adjust her again because I wanted to try what this designer/artist Cat Chow did, which was make a dress out of continuous zipper. In my mom's closet there's this huge roll of zipper tape. I guess what you're supposed to do is cut it to the length you want and the attach the zipper pull onto it (there are tons of those in her closet also). So I wanted to make a top part of a dress like that too! It is such an interesting technique. Although when I sewed this zipper together, some of it bunched a little funny. But to put this one, you have to put yourself in this zipper loop, then you zip the zipper all around your body, and it sort of wraps your body up and turns into a top! It's rather wonderful! And to take it off, (to put it on and off is rather painstaking) you unzip around and around and the shirt unravels into a pile of zipper tape! I really like the idea of an inconspicuous pile of zipper tape, and then when you zip it up it transforms into something! I have to think of something interesting to make. Like a fat pile of zippers, and when you zip it up it becomes a horse or something. It's a great medium to work with.