Production Process: Week 7

 During week 7, I mostly finished my garment outcome. I started by continuing assembling my corset pieces that I have cut last week.  In the first session in week 7, I went to the textile dyeing workshop to dyed my bias tape darker using the brown dylon dye. Although it does get a darker shade of red, however when it's dried, it doesn't turned out as dark as I wanted it to be. I think this is because I added too much water to the dye solution therefore it doesn't make that much different compared to the bias tape before it was dyed. But I decided to still sewed it on to the corset. 

Here is how I planned to lay out my bias tape to make the boning channel so I can insert the boning inside which will give the corset a structured foundation. 

Here is how the corset turned out with the bias tape and lining sewed. I found sewing the boning quite a fun and satisfying part of the whole corset-making process. It was fun to see how the frayed and messy edge of the corset is covered by the bias tape. 

The next step is to add the open-end zipper on both back panel of the corset. When I tried the corset on, it turned out to be too loose on my bust, therefore I decided to took in 4 cm on both of the back panels and re-sew the zipper on. 

By the end of week 7 second session, I finished the corset, so I continue with the skirt. Here is the curtain fabric and batik that I'm going to paired into a square skirt. 

The square skirt pattern is really easy and straightforward. First, I measure how long I wanted the skirt to be vertically and diagonally, as square skirt will drape asymmetrically when it's worn. Next is to cut the fabric in a rectangle shape according to the measurement and cut a circle of 1/6 of the waist measurement. 

Then do the exact same thing with the other fabric. Next is to lay the upper layer fabric or the curtain fabric diagonally on top of the batik, this will make both fabrics drape in the opposite way. The last thing is to add elastic band around the circle and stitch the hem of both of the fabric. 

Here is how it looked on the mannequin. Unfortunately because I was using a really lightweight batik on the bottom layer, it doesn't have structure and doesn't drape how I wanted it to be (see the left image below). And then I was thinking of sticking iron-on interfacing on the fabric to add stiffness therefore it will be more voluminous when it's worn as it can be seen on the right image below. 

The skirt is the easiest and fastest outcome to make as it only took me less than 2 hour to finish. Once it's done, on the last session of week 7, I continued on making the bolero top. I use the bolero pattern from WhiBeArts I found on Etsy (see image below). I really like the puff sleeve from the pattern, but the victorian cuff sleeve doesn't match my corset and skirt design, therefore I did a small alteration of the cuff and made it into a simple puffy sleeve cuff with elastic band. 

The lace fabric that I bought to make the bolero turned out to be too lightweight for the bodice, so I added a beige-color medium-weight fabric for the lining. I really like how the lining makes the white lace pattern pop out even more. 

Here is how it looked with one sleeve sewed. I was thinking of leaving the sleeve into a bell sleeve shaped, but when I asked my friend to tried it on, the sleeve was a big too wide and it will not look nice if it paired with the skirt and corset together. So I decided to add elastic band on the cuff. 

This is how it looked when all the three pieces are paired on the mannequin. I was really satisfied with how it turned out. And I was quite surprised that I could finished all these outcomes 1 week earlier than what I planned. The only thing that is still bothering me is the intense red color from the bias tape that took all the attention from the whole garment. 

I decided to try to dyed the bias tape once again using the Dylon dye that I bought online. Because the bias tape was already sewed to the corset, so I tried applying the dye using a paintbrush carefully to all the bias tape. Learning from my mistakes, this time I diluted the dye with only half a glass of water so I only need to apply one layer of dye on to the tape. 

I was really happy that I decided to re-attempt to dyed the bias tape because the tape turned out to be the maroon-color that I was visioning in the beginning (see the right image below). Now that the bright red is gone, the brown and gold print on the 'songket' fabric became much more visible. 

On week 8, I plan to make the accessories and headpiece to complete my outcome. I also plan to add the beading embroidery to the corset as I was initially plan in my first design sketches. At the end of week 8, I wanted to do the photoshoot of my outcomes and during this time I will also start to design my portfolio pages.