Day 2-Fabrics!!

 Anyway, time to talk about fabric :D! The one I used to practice is from some old, ripped leggings, so the fabric is very light and easy to rip. I think that once I make a material list (hopefully posted at the end of this post!), I'm going to need to get some sturdier fabric. I think my needle is too big for delicate fabrics and I refuse to buy a smaller needle (it was hard enough to put the thread through the eye of the needle. Usually when knitting, I’m a fan of more natural yarn such as cotton, since it's very sturdy compared to something like acrylic. As for fabrics, I did know there were a lot of types, but I did not know the extent. There are so many that I swear I have never heard of, like textured crepe (which is a food??????? Why is it the name of a fabric thing??). Chiffon is like the classic luxury fabric; it’s made from silk. As amazing as that sounds, silk is very fragile, and I do not think that I have the patience to use something that can be ruined so easily. Tulle is a nice fabric used to create volume and this amazing sheer effect; however, its texture is very…. unappealing :(! Poly jersey is an interesting lightweight fabric used for (of course) jerseys. I hate that texture as well. I love everything about velvet, as it looks so elegant and sophisticated (I am heavily considering this for at least one aspect of the dress). And then we have my favorite (that I have already mentioned above) .......... COTTON!! It is literally the best material. It’s so sturdy yet still light and it’s not one of those synthetic ones! I also like all of the lacing details used, and I want to go for a semi-complex look, so I might try to use a tiny bit of lacing at the hems (maybe I’ll make some lace :> [technically I have done that before so :D]). 

Now, for the materials.

I definitely need new scissors, since mine do NOT work that well anymore. Thankfully, I recently (months ago) bought needles that I have not used until a couple of days ago, so I do not have to buy those. I only have purple and black thread. That might work, but it all depends upon the colors I choose. And of course, I’ll need to get some fabric. However, I have not decided on a pattern yet for a dress. I feel like the ones I saw seemed either too simple or too difficult with nothing in between, so I’ll have to keep looking!

Next time I work on this project, I’d like to practice more stitches and find a pattern for the dress, as well as look into how colors work with one another when regarding clothing.

Day 1-Stitches!!

Day one of starting this project and it is not that bad. I learned a few new stitches. Two of them are for hemming (they are the ones on the edge of the fabric), while the rest are just regular stitches. 

The one with the most gaps is a running stitch, and it is the most basic stitch one could learn. Right next to it is my attempt at what I think is called a backstitch (the names are so hard to find for some reason since so many people use so many different names for what I think is the same thing and then apparently, it’s not???). The backstitch is my preferred way of sewing, since it’s more secure than the running stitch. 

On top is the whip stitch, which is a slanted stitch that is designed to not have as much bulk as a different hemming technique. Finally, the hardest one for me: the blanket stitch, which took me around half an hour to figure out, but it became really simple after I realized that the way I moved the needle through was actually important. 

But overall, I felt like it was pretty quick and simple to learn all of them. Of course, they are all uneven, and the tension (is that the right word) is very inconsistent, but the most important part is the stitch itself currently. I will focus on that other stuff later. 

Anyway, below I have provided a picture of my attempt at sewing. Surprisingly, I did not stab myself with the needle at all! The longest part was just doing it…I can tell it’s going to take me forever to actually make that dress :(. 

For my next day, I think I will begin researching the different fabrics, and hopefully, I'll have a list of the materials I'll need and the pattern I'd like to use to make the dress!

Introduction: Why Did I Choose to Do This?!

Hello!! My name is Nadia, and my project consists of learning how to sew! Hopefully by the end of this, I’m able to design and create a dress (or any article of clothing, depending on how much I learn). 

I wanted my project to be about sewing because a lot of my aunts and both of my grandmas know how to sew. They all make clothes for their families, but my mom never learned, so my extension, I didn’t either. Though I did learn how to knit and crochet from my grandma (I made dolls :D), I could never quite grasp sewing. However, I did spend a lot of time drawing up sketches for a ton of dresses that I wanted to make (unfortunately, I think I threw them out years ago). 

(The three dolls I made when I started learning how to crochet)

I think now is a perfect time to learn sewing and everything related to fabric. It’s actually a pretty useful skill, even though plenty of people just gloss over it because it seems so difficult or time consuming, and I think that everyone should at least learn the basics. And I also find all the different types of fabrics to be very interesting, and maybe, it’ll help with figuring out what type of clothing I want to make for this. 

Another reason for me wanting to learn how to sew is because one can see it as an artform. Once you learn all the basics, you can literally create anything, and why not have another creative outlet? 

Anyway, I barely have any experience in sewing. Everything I’ve done was years ago and most of the pieces are falling apart now (...or I lost them…) since my stitches were really loose and simple. I plan to gather information through the use of that one dusty old book on my shelf about all of this and a bunch of online resources. I would ask my grandma, but she left the country already :(. 

By the end of this, I hope that I can retain all of the information I learn so I can maybe continue sewing in college! And I do not have a sewing machine, so I am going to have to do all of this by hand… :)