I am making a linen 4-panel, front/back/sides-gored variation on the Gothic Fitted Dress.
Usually, when I do this, I cut eight gores (4 rectangles cut diagonally) and sew them in, straight-to-straight and bias-to-bias. This time, I cleverly thought "If I fold it in quarters first, and then cut, I'll have three isosceles triangles and two right triangles. Fewer seams!" But now that means I'm facing sewing straight-to-bias for at least three of the gores, if not all four. I know that one side effect will be the tendancy of the fabric to pucker where the bias edge stretches and the straight edge does not. I seem to have two choices: Do I: hang the gores from the point for a few days to allow the fabric to stretch out before sewing them in place (which may or may not prevent puckering after the fact)? Do I: cut each triangle in half so I have my familliar eight gores (six of them being a little narrower than expected because I didn't factor in seam allowance)? I assume there will be a difference in drape between the two, I don't know whether or not it will be enough of a difference to matter. (Will one way make the skirt stand out more?) Has anyone done this? Have you noticed a difference? Emma _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
