Costume Store - Shirt

To begin the construction of the shirt I first examined the example garment provided by Dexter. By doing so I could familiarise myself with all the seams and other construction techniques used to assemble the garment. It was made clear to us that the majority of the unit would be done independently. This is so to develop my awareness of garment construction as a maker to a higher standard; noting important little details, being able to figure out construction order and confidence. 

Once I had an idea of how to construct the garment; gather stitches used in certain places, assembling order etc. I spoke to Dexter to confirm and have corrected my self thought instructions. From then on it seemed like the construction of the shirt would be fairly straight forward and simple however there were a few problems I experienced. 

The first problem came when I had to attach the placket at the front of the garment. Unfortunately I'd snipped into the front of the shirt were the placket folded through an opening too far. The snip kept stretching forming a tear in the garment. It took me quite sometime to manoeuvre the placket then into an appropriate position so the tear would be covered and not spread any further. From this experience I knew I'd have to be a lot more careful with any incisions needed when constructing garments. To be a good maker I need a keen eye for detail so I can't afford to keep making little mistakes such as this one.

The next dilemma I faced was to do with the sleeve. Myself and another girl making the same shirt noticed that the heads on the sleeves of the example shirt had been gathered all the way around. However we'd been previously told by Dexter to only gather at the head point. To find a solution I did a bit of research into sleeve construction and period garment wear. It became apparent that we should follow the advice given by the tutor and not to follow the example shirt. Having gathers all the way around the sleeve head would make it quite bulky/ voluminous, especially if gathered at the front. The historical research (images, patterns) indicated the shirt was gathered just at the eye of the sleeve head. Once this problem had been resolved I continued with the construction.

I carried on putting the cuffs on, overlocking etc the shirt until I encountered another problem with the shirt with the other girls constructing it. When it came to the collar it turned out the piece we'd cut according to the pattern was too large to fit the neck hole. It became too late in the day to figure out a solution to the problem however Dexter agreed to help us resolve the matter another time. This problem made me realise that I should have checked the pattern properly with the other girls who were working with it. If we'd done so we would've been able to fix the problem sooner and carry on completing the shirt. This is a valuable lesson though to have learnt; as a maker always check the patterns you've been given to work from. Especially if you haven't drafted them yourself...

Research example 1)