I've done my research when it comes to making clothes, it's been something that I've always had the urge to do, but never really got around to it finding all manner of excuses to not do it! But I have altered quite a number of things, luckily for this kit, you don't need too much experience, just a sewing machine.
In the kit is practically everything you need:
Fabric
Ribbon
Knicker Elastic
Thread
Hand Needles
 |
| In The Kit |
Crochet Cherries
Pattern
Instructions
A Sticker for good measure (Mine went on my tool kit)
What you also need but isn't in the kit is:
A sewing machine
Bobbin, you'll need to load the bobbin from the thread given in the kit.
Scissors, for both paper and fabric.
And as the instructions rightly point out, you're gonna need time and patience.
So to start off with the kit says to cut out the pattern from the paper. Me being me I didn't want to cut out the size of the pattern I needed, I wanted to keep the pattern for all sizes, so out came the tracing paper, and I traced over the small pattern that I needed. This did involve sticking two pieces of paper together - The A3 paper wasn't big enough!!
Once I'd traced around the pattern it was then time to try and very carefully cut out the pieces from the paper, which was quite difficult, as I didn't draw my lines bold enough... Lesson for next time.
Now the pattern pieces are ready, I can then cut the pieces out of the fabric. Now there are a lot of different ways to cut the fabric. The suggested method is to pin the pieces to the fabric and cut around them. Being an engineer the amount of inaccuracy that can happen using this method makes me slightly nervous, so I tend to avoid this approach. The other well known way is to lay the fabric out, hold the pattern down with pattern weights and use a rotary cutter to cut out the parts. Now I don't have many snazzy things to make my stuff with, so I have come up with a way of doing it that is accurate and doesn't need many snazzy items.
First of all, I iron my fabric so that it lays flat, creases and bumpy bits add to the inaccuracy of the size of the pattern! Then laying the fabric on a hard surface, I place the pattern on the top and draw around the pattern piece onto the back of the fabric. Drawing onto the fabric can be done with a tailor's chalk, but I just use a biro pen. Biro comes out in the wash and will draw easily on the fabric, win. win.
When drawing around the pattern piece it can have a tendency to wiggle if you're not careful, this is where pattern weights can come in handy, not having any of my own I used a heavy gin bottle. Anything that is heavy enough can come in handy for this, even your half finished cup of tea!
Once all the pieces have been cut out it is usually a good idea to iron out any creased bits if there are any.
Now, Let the sewing begin!
The general steps is to match up the bottom pieces of all three parts and sew them together, the front and back pieces facing each other and the gusset. Then the sides get sewn together and you have what seems like a large pair of knickers! It's looking great already!
The next part is the hardest so far. It's sewing in the elastic. The method of doing it is easy, it just takes some fiddly moments, and a lot of patience (and in my case swearing!). The idea is that you put pins in the elastic, so it is separated into four equal sections and the same is done for the leg hole (or waist) and then the pins are matched up with each other and the elastic is pinned into place then, sew together. The first leg I was doing great with the sewing, until I found out that I'd pinned and sewn the elastic to the wrong side of the fabric... Great. So I unpicked the elastic and put the project down for the next time.
So this is where this post ends, but I will finish these knickers off and post the rest of the making soon!
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