Reflection

Reflect on the process of making this project. What did you learn? What would you do differently?

  I wanted to combine some of the lessons and skills taught in this micro, to projects that were only simple concepts in the past. I like to plan cosplay projects and am practicing prop construction, so sewing skills, knitting, felting, weaving, crocheting, and soft circuitry are all skills that can be used to broaden the range of projects I can tackle.  

Given the time span for the project proposal, I researched tulle petticoats and its design to find it too intricate, but definitely an interesting thing to learn in the future. Instead of a completely new design with a three-tier petticoat or having to build a two-ply underskirt for layer two, I will just use stiff fabric for the tan outer shell, and the black, wired inner shell. A lot of the problems I encountered were because of the stiffness of the fabric. Almost all of them were resultant from inconsistent stiffness, and inability to hold shape. I thought about stiffening the fabric with cornstarch, Elmer's glue, or fusible webbing, but this may interfere with the pleats. A small scale demonstration could be done to test the affect of different stiffeners on cotton, canvas, and jersey. 

Making clothes is a incredibly more difficult than I had anticipated. The plan with two layers certainly had a hand in complicating things, because I had to design two separate systems, essentially, that had to collaborate flawlessly. I would be able to plan more clearly if I had more time and resources to practice fundamental skills. Since I have fire extinguisher training after the project deadline, I couldn't test fabrics with different settings and used the test runs from our last Soft Fabrication class and Jen Liu's notes found here: http://jenliujenliu.com/Files/07_LaserCuttingTextiles.pdf. I will pursue this kind of experimentation in the near future. 

I think one of the coolest things I learned during this project was the shaping of clothing without patterns. The cartridge pleats are evident in a lot of the dress designs I am interested in making. It's amazing how the gathering of fabric around the waistline shapes the entire garment without specific cuts. 

Here's a list of the things I've researched and learned for this project specifically:

Fabric composition, texture, heaviness/stiffness and categorization

Pleats, and how they are made

Whip Stitching 

Different ways to make petticoats 

Fabric stiffener and its uses