The Peplum Project

I've made clothes before, but they've tended to be made from scraps of fabric I've wound around my body, bothering my mum to pin in place, then sewing messily together on my sewing machine. "That'll do", I thought, despite the item being somewhat mangled. Nobody ever sees the inside, right?

Well, what tends to happen is that I don't wear said homemade clothes, as they fit badly, or are just downright poorly constructed. Happily I have now learnt the error of my ways, and have constructed a skirt correctly - from designing the pattern to the final pressing - and am overjoyed with the result!

The most exciting part for me was the digital printing. After designing the pattern it was printed in the art block at university. Imagine having one of these printers at home! You'd never have to buy an item of clothing again.








From the initial Photoshop design (I played with pixellating images) to the final stage, steaming

For those who are interested, the skirt's pattern is a basic skirt block, using my own measurements. Each piece is overlocked, then sewn together; I used a 20cm lapped zip. I printed 1 metre of fabric and had just enough left over to make a peplum, using a gathering foot to create the frill. Add a waistband, et voila, my finished skirt!




I enjoyed making it, but I'm afraid I won't be taking orders any time soon - the amount of unpicking and resewing I had to do almost drove me nuts. The whole process really made me appreciate just how hard garment producers work, and how difficult it is to get clothing as perfect as it needs to be for a shop floor.

Worn with a simple leather tee here to really show off the colour and pattern; I can see myself using colours from the print to wear on top and clashing it with other patterns. Utterly wearable!