Pattern: jersey dress. Building a pattern

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:46

Today, when stores are littered with different fabrics, any woman can afford to sew a fashionable and original thing on her own. Of course, the shelves are not empty in clothing stores either, but it is much more interesting and cheaper to sew with your own hands for yourself and your loved ones. After all, a dress tailored to the measurements of the person who will wear it will sit on his figure in a way that no one, even the most expensive ready-made thing, sewn according to the standard will sit on.

The most comfortable clothes are knitwear. This material is easier to work with than many other fabrics, and all modern sewing machines are suitable for working with it. Due to its diversity, knitwear is suitable for sewing both winter and summer clothes. A knitted dress can emphasize the dignity and hide the flaws of the figure.

However, there are a few rules for working withjersey. From this article you will learn how to sew a dress from knitwear with your own hands and the main principles of working with fabrics of this type.

How to work with knitwear

Any material needs its own individual approach, and, despite the relative ease of processing, knitwear is no exception. So, first of all, let's analyze the nuances of working with the material.

To cto sew a dress from knitwear with your own hands, you will have to purchase some additional items.

Tools for sewing knitwear

• Special needles for knitwear. Their difference from the usual ones is that they do not have a sharp, but a rounded tip. Moreover, there are two types of knitting needles: for working with stretch synthetic material and for working with cotton and wool knitwear jersey.
• Double needle. Such a needle is needed to process the edges of the product. It is thanks to this device that the product will have neat edges processed with two parallel lines. To attach a twin needle to your sewing machine, place two spools of thread on the two spool pins so that one spool rotates clockwise and the other counterclockwise. In the case when there is no additional pin on the machine, the second coil is placed nearby in a small container.
• Walking foot. Needed for uniform movement of the upper and lower layers of fabric. However, if you manually baste layers of fabric first, this part is optional.

Cut fabrics

When you have a pattern ready, a knitted dress still needs to be outlined on the fabric, for this it is necessaryprepare.

• If the jersey is stretch or synthetic, it will not shrink after washing, however, cotton fabric must be washed twice before cutting.
• Material must be ironed before cutting.

• Knitwear should be ironed only through the iron, as with direct interaction with the iron, this fabric begins to shine.
• Make sure that wrinkles do not form, they will then be very difficult to smooth out, and in some cases impossible.
• Knitwear cannot be ironed by moving the iron back and forth. It is better to press the iron briefly over the entire canvas.
• To avoid stretching the fabric, do not iron it while wet.
• To cut the fabric neatly, pin the pattern with tailor's pins so that the direction of the grain thread is the same as the direction of the loop columns.
• Knitwear is cut in only one layer, otherwise the pattern may turn out uneven.

Nuances of tailoring knitwear

Knitted fabric stretches easily. Therefore, in order to sew a quality product, you need to pay attention to some particularly important details.

• Particular attention when sewing knitwear should be paid to the shoulder seams, as they run across the buttonholes. So that shortly after sewing the shoulders do not deform and do not fall, the seams must be strengthened with a braid or a non-woven strip.
• When making buttonholes, it is necessary to seal the knitwear inwhere they will be located. To do this, you can use Avalon, a special material for embroidery; after processing the loops, the product must be washed (and the sealant will dissolve) or the glue cobweb. It is enough to iron the product processed with such a sealant - and the gossamer will turn into glue and print the loops.
• If your product requires a zipper, in order to avoid deformation, the sections in the places where the zipper is sewn in must be sealed with adhesive tape or non-woven strips.
• When you process the sleeves, neck and bottom of knitwear, try not to stretch the fabric. It is better to glue the bending points with adhesive tape and process with a double needle.

Dress without pattern

First of all, going to sew a dress from knitwear, the girl begins to look for various women's patterns. Finding good knitted dress patterns is not always easy. It will be difficult for a person who is superficially versed in tailoring to determine the quality of the design they like. For beginners, it is easier to sew such a dress from knitwear, a pattern for which is not needed.

Building a dress pattern from a T-shirt

You can sew a dress of the length you need, using a regular T-shirt or T-shirt as a basis.

For this you will need:

• Fabric.
• A T-shirt that fits your body perfectly.
• Sewing supplies.
• Decorative items (optional).

Determining the amount of fabric for such a dress, you should decide in advance how long the product you want to get. Then measure fromseventh vertebra to the desired dress length. Plus add the length of the sleeve (sleeve is measured from the end point of the shoulder to the desired sleeve length).

Progress of work:

• First of all, iron and prep your knitwear following the tips above.
• Fold the sleeves of the T-shirt at the shoulder seams and lay it on top of the folded fabric.
• Circle the T-shirt with soap or chalk and continue the resulting pattern to the desired length, making an increase in the hips.
• Unfold the sleeves on the T-shirt and circle them, lengthening them to the desired size.
• Cut out patterns, taking into account 1cm seam allowances.
• Cut a 6 cm neckline.
• Fold the neckline to create a neat edge.
• Baste the neckline by hand.
• Sew it on a typewriter and get rid of the basting threads.
• Sew sleeves into tubes.
• Hand baste the side seams so that both sides of the hem of the dress meet at the same level.
• Sew side seams on machine.
• Helm the hem of the dress and sleeves, baste by hand, then machine sew the hem.
• Sew the sleeves to the dress using the tips given at the beginning of the article.

Now you've seen: to sew fashionable clothes, you don't necessarily need a pattern. A jersey dress tailored to a T-shirt is practical and stylish.

How to build a pattern yourself

There are a huge number of different options for dresses. For sewing most of them you needpattern. A knitted dress is no exception. Of course, you can use a ready-made design, but it is much more interesting to master the construction of a knitted dress pattern. Moreover, it is not necessary to make darts for easily stretching knitted fabric: such a dress will perfectly emphasize your figure even without them.

Finding out the percentage of fabric extensibility

Since knitwear is a stretchy fabric, to work with it you need to know the percentage of its extensibility.

To find out how much knitwear stretches, you need to do the following:

• Measure a piece of fabric 10 cm wide at rest.
• Stretch this piece of fabric as much as you want the dress to hug your body.
• Subtract the stretched fabric size from the relaxed fabric size.

The difference is the extensibility of the fabric, it remains only to convert it into percentages. For example, if after the above steps you get 6 cm, then the percentage of fabric stretch is 60%, if 1, 5 - then 15%, if 3 cm - then 30%, etc.

How to reduce the pattern by the fabric factor?

To reduce the size of the pattern by the percentage of knitwear stretching, you need to do the following:

• Find out your measurements needed to build a pattern.
• Divide the circumferences of the bust, waist and hips by two (it will turn out to be a half girth).
• The resulting half-girths (each separately) divided by 100.
• Multiply the result by the fabric stretch factor.
• Subtract the resulting numbers from the half-girth.

For example,the bust is 80cm and the percentage of knitwear stretch ratio is 40%.

• 80: 2=40 (half bust).
• 40: 100=0, 4.
• 0, 4 X 40=16 (centimetres, by which half-girth of the chest should be reduced).
• 40 - 16=24 (the size you take as half bust).

The results obtained after carrying out these steps will be the sizes that your pattern requires. A jersey dress tailored to the above conditions will fit your figure perfectly.

For loose clothing, the percentage of fabric stretch is not taken into account. To calculate the half-circumference of the hips, the percentage of fabric stretch must first be divided by two (if the ratio is 30%, you need 30: 2=15%).

Sleeves, neckline and armholes are also made taking into account the stretching of the fabric.

Knitted floor-length dress

As you already understood, it is quite simple to build a pattern of a knitted dress without darts on your own. You can create a pattern "out of your head", or you can redo an existing one.

If you want your creation to be original and feminine, you don't necessarily need a long jersey dress pattern. You can build the top of the dress using a regular T-shirt as a sample, and sew the hem according to an unusual knitted skirt pattern.

Knitted skirt pattern (dress hem with cut-off top)

To sew this dress you will need:

• T-shirt that is on youfits well.
• Knit fabric, preferably with stripes or geometric patterns.
• Chalk or soap.
• Centimeter.
• A typewriter with matching color threads.
• Scissors.
• Newspaper or other pattern paper.

Progress of work:

• Prepare your fabric using the tips above.
• Following the “dress over t-shirt” example, circle the t-shirt for the top of the dress. If the knit has good stretch, you can skip the seam allowances.
• Measure your hips and waist. Since the bottom of the dress is a loose cut, the stretch factor of the fabric can be ignored.
• Measure the length of the skirt from waist to floor.
• Using the half-girths and lengths known to you, build a skirt pattern, dividing it into arbitrary triangles (as in the picture). Allow for 1cm seam allowances.

• Cut out hem and top pieces.
• Sew the triangles of both parts of the skirt together.
• Sew skirt pieces.
• Sew the top pieces.
• Sew skirt and top together.

It's so easy, knowing just a few tricks, you can sew a stylish dress out of knitwear.