I must confess to a slight obesession with slopers. I started with Winifred Aldrich. Not bad, but that was between pregnancies and my slopers are a little out of date now. Also, I never got the sleeve right. Then I made a replica of myself out of duct tape and tried to drape a sloper on that. Not hugely successful due to my inexperience with draping. Next I moved onto a duct tape skirt, which worked fine. It got a bit expensive after that when I purchased the Wild Ginger software. Not the best money I ever spent. My fifth attempt at a Wild Ginger sloper is crumpled at the bottom of my sewing cupboard. Now my journey is over, having stumbled on
The European Cut by Elizabeth Allemong. Drumroll please....
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I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I got a little bit of advice from the author, Elizabeth, who is lovely, and tweaked the sloper a little to get rid of the wrinkles on the backside, the pulling at the front thighs and small amount of gaping at the neck. I'd like to show you a proper photo, but now that I am in the market for a new camera (thanks Belinda and Kristy for your info), you will have to make do with a twisted-in-the-mirror shot.
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I've never been one for fitted dresses, finding them impssible to buy and elusive to fit, but I am encouraged by this sloper. And after all, it is the year of the fitted sheath. But then again, where would I wear a fitted sheath?
The methods for drafting the slopers are quite detailed, based on 38 measurements. We made a night of it! The directions given for the measurements are very comprehensive. The illustrations are all hand drawn and based on real sized person. It took me a weekend to do this, but after reading other reviews, it sounds like the process would get quicker each time. The author says that she can draft a bodice sloper in 10 minutes.
I have started drafting the sleeve, but it has been sitting on a table for a couple of weeks now and next weekend I will be sewing my children costumes for book week, so it may be a while off yet. After that I will move onto the torso sloper. I'm not sure if I will try the pants sloper, because I am pretty happy with my Marfy pants patterns at the moment.
9 comments:
Wow! Your sloper fits beautifully!
I am amazed you got such a great fit from a set of measurements. It's come up so well! I'm particulary admiring the waist curve and back - those can be places where measuring round and converting to flat measurements doesn't work out that well. Great job!
Very impressive!! Great job. Oh I would love to be at this stage... one day.
Very impressive! What a difference a perfect fit makes!
Wow! That is a fabulous fit!
Never heard of the word sloper before. You learn lots of things in blogland.
yes, i was wondering about the word sloper too?
never heard it in current or historical context..
ah, i think is technical terms it is a block?
whow! this is such a nice fit. And huge work, I'm impressed.
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