Designing & Sewing Clothing
Creating clothing from scratch is a long process and a lot goes into it. I want to show you what goes into making a single shirt. First you have to come up with the idea, what color, what material, what details, etc. I decided to make an all white athleisure top, that would be comfortable to wear, but still stylish. So, I opened up Adobe Illustrator and began to form the shape of a top.
This is the basic shape of the shirt, then I had to add all the details, such as a collar, stitches, and mesh fabric. I would have also added color here, but the shirt was white.
This is the final shirt design, once this is done, I now can start on making a shirt pattern. I start with taking out my pattern-making paper, which you can purchase on amazon or at mood fabrics. The best type is http://www.moodfabrics.com/dotted-pattern-paper-30-yards.html. I draw out a basic shirt pattern with the measurements I chose to use. Then I start to adjust it to my design, so I cut out a strip in the middle of the shirt for the mesh cutout. Then change the neckline a little for the collar, crop the hem, and make sleeves. If I run into any pattern-making challenges and need some assistance I use this book:
Once I think the pattern is good, I will do a test fit using muslin fabric, which is a very cheap fabric that can be purchased at any fabric store. I will lay all the pattern pieces on the fabric, pin them to the fabric and cut them out. Once it is all cut out I will start to sew all the pieces together. During the sewing process I will notice if anything isn't going together right or if I made any errors in the pattern-making. When it's all sewn I will place it on my mannequin to see how it lays and if there are anymore fitting errors that I will have to fix on my patterns. The test fits not beautiful, but it is essential in making sure your final product is the best fit it can be!
Next I made adjustments to my pattern and made adjustments to the test fit fabric, until I felt confident that it was perfect. Then I started on making the final shirt production. I got the white polyester/spandex blend fabric that I had in my fabric pile for years and I went to Joann's to get the white mesh fabric. Then like with the test fit I laid the fabric out and pinned the pattern pieces to it. I cut it out with precision making sure to not stretch the fabric while cutting, otherwise it will not line up correctly once sewing. When I cut everything out I was ready to start sewing. For this fabric, since it had a lot of stretch, I had to use my serger machine to sew it all together. This is also a great machine to use because it finishes your garment with clean inside seams, so no loose strings or fraying to worry about! Once the shirt is all sewn together it's time to do the last step, which is ironing it. Then I put it on the mannequin to see the final product.
This shirt is available on our site right now, there is only one in stock, buy this one of a kind design now!