In the Sketchbook- July 2016

Welcome to In the Sketchbook, a monthly look at fashion design sketches that we are working on for ourselves. Sketching garments on a personal croquis is a great way for the individual couture enthusiast to move beyond the use of commercial patterns and into a world of personalized design! It can be intimidating at first, but with a little bit of practice it becomes something you look forward to. Join us for a look of what we have going on In the Sketchbook! Brought to you by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor and Steph King from Siouxzeegirl Designs.

My Sketching this much was much more targeted to working out a specific design. I focused on using my fabrics that I have in my collection to come up with a perfect design.

My process for this started with me having the idea of wanting a garment using a specific combination of 3 fabrics. I then sketched out several designs (these were seen last month). The next part of the process was sketching the fabrics into the designs. This really brought my sketches to life and fairly quickly ruled out one of the 3 designs. In a mentoring session with Sarah Veblen we discussed the merits of each design as well as how I really felt about each one. I had no idea that designing could be so emotion based!

This first design was fun and I enjoyed playing with different fabrics for the collar and waist tabs. In the end this design did not make the cut. I just was not feeling it, possibly too many details along with too complicated of fabrics. It is also quite fancy! Like a very special opera performance fancy. 

This design failed as soon as I started sketching in the fabrics. The turned back peplum just caused too many changes in fabric. It also doesn't really help that I drew an exaggerated stripe on the pants. The entire ensemble immediately screamd circus to me!! So not the look I'm going after!

This last design made me go 'ohh' and 'ahh' and I believe I clapped my hands in glee. Perfection for me!

Once I decided on the final design I also sketched up the back of the garment and started thinking about the construction details. The next step in the process will move out of the sketching phase and into flat pattern and muslin stages. This is a very fun process!

Here is the back sketch with coloration. 

Here is the back with the intended fabrics. 

The princess line pencil skirt is to be made out of the dark grey wool with red pinstripes.

The jacket is to be made out of the red/black circle jacquard with the laser cut scuba over the top.

I had a couple of other sketches, not quite so many this month! The two I really like was one based off of a swatch of acid green wool that I love and was daydreaming about what it could be. I went with a sleeveless princess line sheath dress with a pouf along the bottom and  an elbow length swing jacket with poufs at the hem and a jewel neck closure. The wool is amazingly gorgeous but at $88 a yard (on sale!) this one may just end up being a daydream! 

The second was conceived when I was sitting and having sketchers block , I gave myself a question along with a 5 min time limit.  The question was 'what I would wear to a ball?' I found this to be very helpful in getting myself out of my head and just sketching!

Wendy and I would love to have this feature grow into a link-up with other sewing bloggers. If you are interested in joining in this creative adventure or just want to share what you have been designing  please leave a comment to this post.