Chemise...done!

Due to lack of time (horray for Royal Weddings, bank holidays and what-not) I was required to change my work schedual slightly - trying to squeeze as much making as possible into the last week before handing in my pieces. Luckily I was able to borrow a small domestic sewing machine for the time that I was in London on work experience which saved me some time and took off the pressure of having to make two garments in a week. Obviouslt to overcome this I need to look back over my time plan at least once a week to ensure that I am on target with my work and not in danger of running out of time.

When working away from the studio I had a rough idea of what the garment should look like - pretty much all of the seams were french seams with only the godae straight stitched in and overlocked.The neckline seemed to be gathered then applied onto cotton tape with elastic. For my piece I just used elastic to create the same effect. A small zigzag stitch was used to gather the material edge to neatly finish off the raw edge of the material.

The only problems I encountered with this garment were with the material - it was so thin that it was impossible to mark with coloured chalk and using pins bruised the material too much. I overcame this by using white chalk to mark out the design lines and used as few pins as I could possibly manage. Due to the fineness of the material it had a tendancy to bunch up under the sewing machine, emphasising that it is always vital to test a scrap piece of material under the machine to test the stitch tension and to ensure that the material will be able to handle going through the machine.


The chemise took two days to make, which was surprising as I had expected it to take longer. As I did not have the sample to refer to when making the chemise it is not an exact replica of the original - the only difference is that the french seams are not as fine as the sample chemise, however these could easily be altered if necessary.