A job well done !!

So I ended up being 1 of 3 winners !

and my bathers went into a parade at the Maritime Museum with other Adelaide Designers !

here are the photos ! :]

The 3 winners: Brenton, Ally and myself

My bathers on model Kelly

All of the bathers, us 3 students designs and the other Adelaide Designers

Finished Bathers and Photo Shoot

Considering this was my first time making bathers and using a stretch fabric, I am quite proud of what I have created :]



Here is my final bathers and my photo shoot thanks to beautiful Hayley, my model and good friend.

Almost there

I was extremely happy with the way my bathers had turned out. You can see that my bathers look a but gathered, but this dummie is really small, so when on a body, they will stretch out a lot nicer.

So the next step to do was to create my 'hair', so I placed layers of fabric and feather down, like this:

When its inserted:

I did also end up putting a row of sequins over the closed seam, just to neaten it up a bit.

Trial and Error

After starting the whole bathers again !!!! I think they do look better this time around though. The reason I had to cut out my pattern and start again was because, in my tiole I didnt know how to finish off the back panel edges, so the lecturers said to just zig zag the edges. But when I came to do this, the edges looked loose and curly becuase I didnt put elastic in it, which you can see in this picture below. Although when on a body it stretches out, but I needed to start again. If I were to unpick all that zig zag stitch around the whole back panel it would start to fray and make holes in the fabric. So as much as I hated the idea of starting again, I think it turned out better the 2nd time.

I also decided to change the waist straps, they were originally bagged out, but I didnt think it blended as well with the rest of the bathers, so I put elastic on either edge.

Pattern Making

I started with just following the basic outline of a leotard block. I wasn't sure if it was going to work though, because whenever you do a flat pattern piece, it always looks fat, haha. I just kept going and hoped for the best.

Once the tiole fabric was cut out and I had pinned in on my manniquin, it looked better than expected. Exclude the bits and pieces on the shoulder.

I added a few cm's around the bust area, because I thought that might be a bit too low, I didnt want boobs popping out. haha. I did realise though, that when on a human body, the waist straps will want to move into the smallest part of the waist, they wouldn't sit there like they are on the manniquin. So I know the next picture is hard and messy to see, I had to change the lower straps on either side to meet at the side seam on the bikini bottoms, which you will see in a later photo.

My final chosen design

So this is my final design, which I drew up on CorelDraw. Obviously it will all be in black, but i changed the colour of my decoration so that you can see it better. It will contain feathers, strands of the stretch woollen jersey and another fabric of my choice, maybe one will glitter on it ? and a braid which I will just make out of wool. The whole aim of having the shoulder pads with the fabric emergining out of it, is to portray the image of mermaids hair.

1st day back to tafe !

I couldn't wait to get started on this Woollen Mermaids Project. I was excited but really nervous knowing myself and all my other class mates have never used stretch fabric before, nor have we ever made bathers !

We all got three inspirational images and these were mine :

So I went and did a bit of research on Annette Kellerman and started with my designs. Annette was know as the 'Perfect Woman', so I wanted to design my bathers showing off the womans feminine body, buy showing lots of skin. She was also know as the "Australian Mermaid', which made me think of their long hair. I found this picture of Paris Hilton which I thought was a great example.